«oofa*  bp  fcenrp  fcolt 


CALMIRE,    Man  and  Nature.    Sixth  edition 

revised. 
STURMSEE     Man  and  Man.    Third  edition 

revised. 


THE  COSMIC  RELATIONS  AND  IMMORTAL- 
ITY, second  edition,  2  vols. 

ON  THE  Civic  RELATIONS.  Being  a  third 
edition  of  "  Talks  on  Civics"  rewritten 
from  the  catechetical  into  the  expository 
form,  and  revised  and  enlarged. 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN    COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


THE  COSMIC   RELATIONS 
AND   IMMORTALITY 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOL.  I 


THE  COSMIC  RELATIONS 
AND  IMMORTALITY 

®r 
HENRY  HOLT 

Bting  a  second  edition  eftbt  author"  i  treatise 

"ON  THE  COSMIC  RELATIONS" 
VOLUME  I 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

*br  filter*  iDe  prr*<  CambnDgr 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,    1914,   BY   HKNRY   HOLT 
COPYRIGHT,    1919,   BY   HENRY   HOLT 

Published  November,  igu 

Reprinted.  March,  igis 

Second  edition,  enlarged,  November,  1919 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION 

OP  course  no  one  could  sanely  undertake  an  exhaustive 
treatment  of  the  subject  indicated  by  the  title  of  this  book. 
What  I  have  attempted  is  an  outline  of  the  evolution  of  the 
relations  between  the  soul  and  the  external  universe,  and 
a  summary  of  the  recognized  relations  that  are  still  so  im- 
maturely  evolved  as  to  be  little  understood. 

With  the  latest  philosophy,  I  have  assumed  a  germ  of 
consciousness  in  each  particle  of  the  star  dust,  recognizing 
the  consciousness  when  it  becomes  obvious  in  the  recoil  of 
protoplasm  from  contact,  and  following  the  evolution  up 
through  primitive  life  into  the  soul  as  we  know  it  to-day. 
I  have  made  this  sketch  with  a  special  view  to  showing  that 
the  existence  of  an  unknown  universe  is  a  corollary  of  the 
evolution  of  knowledge.  This  has  often  been  expressed  in 
a  sentence,  but  not  often  systematically  expounded  and  illus- 
trated. 

After  this  hasty  sketch  of  the  a  priori  indications  of  an 
unknown  universe,  I  have  gone  at  once  into  the  a  posteriori 
indications,  giving  an  account  of  the  mysterious  relations 
that  have  been  carefully  studied  only  for  a  generation,  between 
the  human  forces  now  termed  telekinetic  and  the  better 
known  modes  of  force;  and  also  of  the  psychical  relations 
termed  telepathic,  following  them  up  to  those  which  some 
consider  spiritistic. 

That  these  phenomena  are  of  great  interest,  and  the  study 
of  them  of  the  very  first  importance,  has  been  the  belief  of 
some  of  the  first  minds  of  our  time,  including  minds  so 
diverse  as  those  of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Professor  James. 

These  things  upon  the  borders  of  our  Cosmic  Relations 
have  been  most  notably  studied  by  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  and  earliest  perhaps  among  the  motives  for  under- 
taking this  book,  was  the  desire  to  present,  so  far  as  I  could 
in  the  limits,  and  in  such  organic  shape  as  I  could,  the  most 


2033194 


vi  Preface 

important  of  the  accounts  of  phenomena  and  comments  upon 
them  scattered  through  the  forty  odd  volumes  so  far  pub- 
lished by  that  Society.  My  compilation  has  naturally  ac- 
creted with  itself  considerable  material  from  kindred  sources, 
including  some  from  the  observations  of  my  friends  and 
myself;  and  I  have  ventured  to  accompany  it  with  many 
guesses  and  comments  of  my  own  as  to  causes  and  implica- 
tions of  the  phenomena.  Where  all  is  so  vague,  there  can  be 
no  immodesty  in  any  earnest  student  hazarding  his  guesses. 
The  only  immodesty  conspicuous  in  the  connection  is  that 
frequently  shown  by  those  who  pooh-pooh  the  facts  without 
knowing  anything  about  them. 

Many  of  the  facts  presented  are  very  nebulous,  and  the 
guesses  are  naturally  more  nebulous  still.  This  has  led  to 
a  great  deal  of  deliberate  repetition,  of  views  from  various 
angles, — so  much  that  I  fear  it  will  tax  the  patience  of  the 
readers  whose  approval  I  most  desire.  I  trust,  however,  that 
they  will  bear  with  the  repetitions  better  from  knowing  that, 
although  there  is  probably  a  full  share  of  those  which 
result  from  imperfection  in  the  author's  grasp,  there  are 
many  others  which  are  of  set  purpose. 

I  beg  farther  indulgence  for  some  inconsistencies.  For 
instance,  in  dealing  with  the  most  tremendous  subjects  that 
tempt  our  intellects,  at  one  moment  one  is  conscious  of  their 
immensity,  and  uses  the  habitual  symbols  for  the  feeling, 
and  at  the  next  moment,  in  a  different  connection,  the  word 
that  he  has  just  capitalized  arises  in  some  matter-of-fact 
connection  without  any  emotional  content,  and  slips  off  the 
pencil  as  free  from  emphasis  as  any  other  word.  I  let  them 
stay  as  they  fell,  and  hope  that  their  inconsistencies  will  not 
bother  the  reader  as  much  as  they  have  bothered  the  proof 
readers.  Those  good  (and  sometimes  very  bad)  people  have 
also  been  greatly  bothered  by  the  extracts  of  heteromatic 
writing :  for  I  left  them  to  be  printed  just  as  I  found  them, 
and  they  are  often  superior  to  the  rules  of  rhyme  and  reason, 
let  alone  rhetoric  and  proof  reading.  Moreover,  there  are 
folks  who  don't  like  being  bound  by  rule :  if  there  never  had 
been  such,  this  book  would  not  have  been  possible — or  perhaps 
any  other. 

In  addition  to  the  sins  for  which  I  have  already  sought 


Preface  vii 

absolution,  I  have  contradicted  myself  with  a  freedom  per- 
haps not  quite  Emersonian,  but  also,  alas!  not  quite  with 
Emersonian  excuse ;  and  perhaps  the  worst  thing  I  have  done, 
but  a  thing  which  I  suspect  has  been  done  by  more  than 
one  other  author,  even  by  as  great  a  one  as  I  have  just 
named,  is  letting  stand  two  or  three  sentences  written  in 
good  faith,  whose  meaning  is  so  elusive  that,  by  the  time  of 
revision,  it  has  escaped  even  the  author.  It  may  come  back, 
though,  when  sought  under  different  circumstances,  even  by 
a  different  person. 

To  crown  all  the  paradoxical  treatment  of  a  paradoxical 
subject,  there  is  matter  on  pages  373-4  and  395-6  that  perhaps 
ought  to  be  in  the  preface,  but  it  could  not  be  understood 
without  a  knowledge  of  much  that  precedes  it. 

I  have  not  made  so  much  apology  without  a  vivid  con- 
sciousness that  qui  s'excuse  s'accuse.  But  is  there  not  suf- 
ficient sanction  in  antique  usage,  for  a  preface  being  "  The 
Author's  Apology  "  ?  And  surely  in  these  days  of  unrelent- 
ing  book  production,  he  has  more  need  of  apology  than 
ever  before.  I  do  not  envy  the  man,  or  have  much 
hope  for  the  work  of  the  man,  who  can  write  on  these  vague 
subjects  without  painfully  mistrusting  himself.  But  there 
is  at  least  one  good  reason  for  any  aspirant  setting  out  with 
a  good  heart — though  he  may  receive,  and  deserve,  no  atten- 
tion, or  even  contemptuous  attention,  he  is  at  least  essaying 
needed  work:  for  our  age  takes  too  little  interest  in  these 
subjects,  even  if  some  ages  have  taken  too  much. 

My  obligations  to  many  friends  are  great — to  Mr.  Dorr, 
Professor  Kellogg,  and  Professor  Newbold  they  are  beyond 
expression.  That  two  of  them  have  sometimes  talked  all 
night  with  me  is  but  a  faint  indication.  Professor  Kellogg 
has  read  some  of  the  proof,  and  Professor  Newbold  the  whole 
of  it  So  has  Mr.  Bartlett,  the  biographer  of  Foster.  So 
also  have  several  other  friends,  some  of  them  at  almost  as 
great  sacrifice  of  peace  of  mind  as  the  proof  readers. 

I  have  also  to  express  my  thanks  to  the  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research  for  permitting  the  publication  of  some  of  the 
matter  in  Professor  Newbold's  hands  which  is  under  their 


viii  Preface 

control.     It  is  given  in  Chapter  XXXVI,  and  also  in  the 
Baker  case  on  pp.  8591 

Some  passages  have  been  printed  in  The  Unpopular  Re- 
view. As  it  is  usual  to  acknowledge  such  facts,  partly  per- 
haps to  warn  off  readers,  so  slight  a  circumstance  as  my 
being  the  editor  ought  not  to  prevent  the  acknowledgment 
here. 

H.  H. 

FAIBHOLT,  BURLINGTON,  Vr. 
September  26,  1914. 


PEEFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

THE  interest  in  Psychical  Eesearch  which  has  sprung  from 
the  bereavements  of  the  war,  has  brought  a  sudden  demand 
for  a  new  edition  of  this  work.  The  title  of  the  first  edition 
was  simply  "On  the  Cosmic  Relations."  Sir  William  Bar- 
rett, in  a  notice  approving  of  its  contents,  expressed  dissatis- 
faction with  its  title,  and  made  its  inadequacy  for  the  first 
time  apparent  to  the  author.  Although  the  principal  purpose 
of  the  book  was  to  tell  what  had  been  done  in  Psychical 
Eesearch,  the  title  came  from  a  desire  to  show  that  the  new 
phenomena  under  research  were  as  legitimate  a  part  of  our 
relations  to  the  cosmos  as  those  which  had  preceded  them, 
and  thus  to  establish  the  scientific  basis  for  the  new  knowledge 
by  correlating  it  with  the  old.  I  also  hoped  thereby  to  lessen 
the  opposition  with  which  the  new  knowledge,  so  contrary  to 
old  prejudices,  is  generally  received. 

But  Sir  William's  comment  opened  my  eyes  to  the  fact  that 
the  book's  title  failed  in  what,  to  a  person  not  of  the  Euskinian 
type  of  mind,  is  really  the  first  object  of  a  title— to  indicate 
the  main  purpose  of  the  book ;  and  thereby  incidentally  facili- 
tate its  circulation.  I  trust  that  the  expansion  of  the  title  in 
this  edition  will  remedy  the  defect,  and  excuse  this  long 
explanation. 

Since  the  first  edition  was  published  in  1914  "  mediums  "  as 
gifted  as  their  predecessors,  and  with  a  great  variety  of  gifts, 
have  cropped  up  everywhere  and  in  all  social  positions,  and 


Preface  to  the  Second  Edition  ix 

there  has  been  an  enormous  amount  of  involuntary  writing 
by  ouija  board  or  pencil.  Seldom  has  there  been  such  a  flood 
of  literature,  good  and  bad,  contributed  in  an  equal  time  to 
any  other  department  of  knowledge.  This  suggests  that  this 
book  should  be  rewritten,  but  that  would  involve  withholding 
it  at  a  time  when  the  demand  is  pressing  and  perhaps  impor- 
tant. And  rewriting  is  not  really  worth  while :  for  there  has 
been  no  such  change  in  the  aspect  of  the  matters  treated,  as 
cannot  readily  be  disposed  of  in  a  supplement.  Yet  not  only 
has  the  general  literature  of  the  subject  vastly  increased,  but 
my  personal  knowledge  of  the  phenomena  has  increased  also, 
and  it  may  be  worth  while  to  give  some  idea  of  the  new 
aggregate.  This  I  have  attempted  in  some  supplementary 
chapters,  and  I  have  also  made  some  modifications  in  the 
final  summary  of  the  first  edition. 

I  have  added  nothing  to  speak  of  about  "  materialization." 
Before  Dr.  Crawford's  discoveries,  summarized  in  Chapter 
LVI,  I  was  so  skeptical  about  it  that  I  had  not  even  studied 
the  subject ;  and  I  am  still  ignorant  of  it  except  at  second  hand. 
But  Dr.  Crawford's  evidence,  and  some  that  has  reached  me 
privately,  make  me  think  that  the  topic  is  probably  worthy 
of  attention.  I  can  not,  however,  hold  back  this  edition  to 
study  it  farther. 

When  the  first  edition  was  published,  there  was  compara- 
tively little  information  outside  the  Proceedings  of  the  S. 
P.  R.,  and  as  they  were  not  easily  accessible  to  readers  gen- 
erally, I  quoted  from  them  very  freely.  But  the  English 
S.  P.  R.  has  not  been  as  active  as  before  the  war,  and  has 
confined  its  reports  more  and  more  to  studies  deeper  than  the 
average  lay  student's  interests  go.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  now  many  good  books  within  reach  of  everybody. 
Yet  with  the  exception  of  Dr.  Crawford's,  they  do  little  more 
than  confirm  what  I  have  given  already. 

All  the  additions  I  have  found  practicable  are,  in  Chapter 
LVI  some  brief  accounts  of  what  appear  to  be  the  revolu- 
tionary discoveries  in  Telekinesis  announced  by  Dr.  Craw- 
ford ;  in  Chapters  LVII  and  LVIII,  some  account  of  my  own 
experiences  with  two  remarkable  new  sensitives,  touching 
whom  nothing  has  yet  been  published  except  my  own  articles 
in  The  Unpopular  (now  the  Unpartizan)  Review,  from  which 


i  Preface  to  the  Second  Edition 

I  quote  freely;  and  in  Chapter  LIX,  I  give  some  comments 
on  the  current  flood  of  involuntary  writing,  and  a  brief  ac- 
count of  a  few  of  the  most  remarkable  and  novel  recent 
miscellaneous  cases. 

Because  of  the  progress  of  Psychical  Eesearch  since  the 
first  edition,  the  supplementary  chapters  (LVI-LIX)  and  the 
slightly  modified  final  summary  composing  Chapter  LX,  are 
of  course  somewhat  at  variance  with  the  first  edition.  Espe- 
cially are  Chapters  LVII,  on  my  experiences  with  Mr.  T.— 
and  LVIII,  on  my  experiences  with  "  Mrs.  Vernon,"  at  vari- 
ance with  the  statement,  after  my  seance  with  Mrs.  Piper,  in 
Chapter  XXVIII,  that  I  had  not  been  near  a  medium  since, 
nor  cared  to  go.  But  I  did  not  go  then,  and  have  not  gone 
since,  to  seek  communication  with  my  own  departed  ones  (in 
fact  I  willed  it  away  in  the  Piper  sitting)  but  I  have  gone 
merely  to  study  the  subject;  and  I  strenuously  counsel 
against  the  habit  of  going  for  any  other  purpose.  Notice 
Mrs.  Travers- Smith's  opinions  on  that  point  in  Chapter 
LIX. 

To  avoid  making  an  entirely  new  index,  a  short  sup- 
plementary index  of  the  new  matter  has  been  printed  after 
the  original  index.  But  introducing  that  new  matter  between 
the  last  two  chapters  of  the  first  edition,  has  involved  renum- 
bering the  pages,  and  consequently  the  references  after  page 
930  in  the  original  index  are  seventy  pages  too  small.  They 
can  be  corrected  by  adding  that  number,  or  the  corrected  ones 
can  be  found  in  the  supplementary  index. 

In  the  investigation  of  the  subject,  probably  the  greatest 
need  now  obvious  is  the  comparative  study  of  the  immense 
mass  of  alleged  evidence  already  accumulated — a  search  for 
generalizations  regarding  which  sensitives  generally  agree; 
and  that  is  needed  whether  the  study  leads  to  the  discovery 
of  underlying  principles,  or  "busts  up"  the  whole  thing. 
I,  for  one,  don't  think  it  will.  If  I  were  younger  and  less 
committed  to  other  work,  I  might  attempt  that  study,  but 
even  then  there  would  be  no  justification  to  keep  this  book 
out  of  print  until  the  work  should  be  done.  There  are  others 
to  do  the  work,  and  I  earnestly  commend  it  to  them. 

What  little  comparative  study  has  already  been  done  has 


Preface  to  the  Second  Edition  xi 

brought  out  some  important  uniformities  which  it  may  not 
be  premature  to  call  laws.  The  best  summary  of  them  that  I 
know  has  been  made  by  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  in  The  New 
Revelation.  I  give  a  brief  but  very  significant  quotation  from 
it  in  Chapter  LIX. 

Since  the  first  edition  appeared,  we  have  had  the  terrible 
privilege  of  living  through,  or  at  least  into,  the  greatest 
period  of  revolution  the  world  has  known.  On  its  physical 
side  the  revolution  has  probably  been  no  greater  than  on  its 
psychical  side.  The  accelerated  weakening  of  old  dogmas  has 
greatly  increased  the  interest  in  Psychical  Research;  but,  of 
course,  a  stronger  influence  has  been  the  hope  of  reunion 
with  those  whom  the  war  has  so  cruelly  torn  away.  Ex- 
travagant as  the  suggestion  may  appear,  perhaps  this  interest 
may  yet  more  than  compensate  all  the  suffering  of  the  war. 
The  least  that  can  be  expected  from  it  is  a  better  correlation 
of  psychic  phenomena  with  our  previous  knowledge,  while  as 
much  can  be  hoped  for  as  a  clearer  demonstration  of  the 
survival  of  death,  a  regenerated  religion,  and  expectation  of 
a  rational  heaven. 

An  eminent  scientific  man  casually  remarked  to  me  the 
other  day :  "  I  see  that  now  Lodge  and  Conan  Doyle  have 
had  their  heads  turned."  I  asked  him  if  he  had  read  their 
books,  and  when  he  told  me  he  had  not,  I  had  my  pleasure 
usual  in  such  cases,  of  telling  him  that  I  knew  he  had  not, 
when  he  made  his  remark. 

The  splendid  labors  of  the  S.  P.  R.  have  been,  especially 
lately,  largely  devoted  to  search  for  what  James  used  to  call 
"  knock-down  evidence."  I  don't  expect  it  much  more  than 
I  expect  the  exact  squaring  of  the  circle :  what  with  telepathy, 
teloteropathy,  and  the  possibility  of  verification  only  from 
incarnate  minds,  not  to  speak  of  the  inevitable  difference 
between  the  conditions  of  incarnate  existence  and  postcarnate 
existence,  if  there  is  any,  the  conditions  of  the  question, 
outside  of  Telekinesis,  do  not  seem  to  admit  of  knock-down 
evidence.  Yet  evidence  may  be  convincing  without  being  con- 
clusive, and  there  does  seem  a  visible  chance  that  as  people 
learn  more  and  more  of  the  facts  that  have  already  convinced 


xii  Preface  to  the  Second  Edition 

most  of  the  investigators — that  have  "  turned  the  heads  "  of 
Swedenborg,  Lincoln,  Myers,  Hodgson,  Lodge,  Crookes,  Bar- 
rett and  the  Balfours,  and  attracted  the  profound  attention 
of  Gladstone,  Bishop  Boyd-Carpenter,  MacDougall,  Schiller, 
Bergson,  Gilbert  Murray,  James,  and  Lord  Eayliegh — as  peo- 
ple learn  more  of  these  things,  and  as  the  fashion  of  involun- 
tary writing  spreads,  there  will  gradually  spread  a  belief  in 
immortality  based  on  such  evidence  as  we  may  have.  Men 
have  gone  to  the  stake  for  convictions  whose  evidence  was  no 
stronger.  With  that  conviction  we  may  hope  for  a  great 
increase  in  right  reason,  in  morality,  in  hopefulness,  and 
consequently  in  happiness. 

H.  H. 

FAIRHOLT,  BURLINGTON,  VT. 
October  23,  1919. 


CONTENTS 

BOOK  I 
CORRELATED  KNOWLEDGE 

BAPTER  FAOB 

I.   INTRODUCTION 1 

II.  SKETCH  OF  HUMAN  EVOLUTION— BODY  .       .  13 

III.  SKETCH  OP  HUMAN  EVOLUTION — SOUL  .       .  29 

IV.  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  UNIVEBSE  ....  50 
V.  THE  KNOWN  UNIVERSE  AND  THE  UNKNOWN  .  55 

VI.   SOME  ETHICAL  ASPECTS  OF  EVOLUTION  .       .      67 

BOOK  II 

UNCORRELATED  KNOWLEDGE 
VII.   INTRODUCTION 81 

PART  I 
TELEKINESIS 

VIII.   MOLAR  TELEKINESIS 91 

IX.    MOLAR  TELEKINESIS  (Continued) — DOWSING  123 

X.   MOLECULAR  TELEKINESIS 142 

XI.   MOLAR  TELEPSYCHIC  TELEKINESIS  .       .       .  167 

XII.   MOLECULAR  TELEPSYCHIC  TELEKINESIS  .       .  181 

PART  II 

XIII.  AUTOKINESIS 197 

PART  III 

XIV.  PSYCHOKINESIS    . 216 

ziii 


XIV 


Contents 


PART  IV 
TELEPSYCHOSIS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XV.  '.INTRODUCTION 218 

XVI.    TELEPATHY  BETWEEN  FOSTER  AND  THE  AU- 
THOR       221 

XVII.    EARLY  TELEPATHIC  SENSITIVES  .       .       .  228 

XVIII.    EECENT  TELEPATHIC  SENSITIVES        .      . .  240 

XIX.    SUGGESTED  CORRELATIONS  OF  TELEPATHY  .  276 

XX.    THE  COSMIC  SOUL 294 

XXI.    THE  COSMIC  SOUL  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

SOUL 305 

XXII.   MIND  AND  BRAIN  AGAIN      ....  314 

XXIII.  THE  IDEA 321 

XXIV.  POSSESSION  IN  GENERAL      .       .       .       .329 
XXV.   POSSESSION  IN  HETEROMATIC  WRITING     .  339 

XXVI.   DRAMATIC  POSSESSION.    EARLY  CASES      .  364 

XXVII.   PRELIMINARY   EEGARDING  THE   S.   P.   B. 

SITTINGS      .......  368 

XXVIII.    MRS.  PIPER  :  AUTHOR'S  EXPERIENCE    .       .  380 

XXIX.    HODGSON'S  FIRST  PIPER  EEPORT,  1888-91  .  400 

XXX.    MRS.  PIPER'S  ENGLISH  SITTINGS,  1889-90  .  426 
XXXI.   HODGSON'S  SECOND  PIPER  EEPORT,  1892-5 — 

GEORGE  "  PELHAM  "  .       .       .       .       .460 

XXXII.    HODGSON'S   SECOND  PIPER  EEPORT    (Con- 
tinued)— MISCELLANEOUS  SITTINGS       .  479 

XXXIII.  HODGSON'S  SECOND  PIPER  EEPORT   (Con- 

tinued)—THE  THAW  SITTINGS       .       .  496 

XXXIV.  HODGSON'S   SECOND  PIPER  EEPORT   (Con- 

cluded)—HODGSON'S  CONCLUSIONS  .       .  513 

XXXV.    PROFESSOR  NEWBOLD'S  EEPORT    .       .       .531 

XXXVI.    FARTHER  NEWBOLD  NOTES  .  552 


Contents  xv 

CHAPTER  PAOK 

XXXVII.    PROFESSOR  HYSLOP'S  REPORT    .       .       .597 
XXXVIII.    MR.     PIDDINGTON'S    REPORT    ON     MRS. 

THOMPSON        .       .       .       .       .       .     602 

XXXIX.    THE    THOMPSON-PIPER-JOSEPH    MARBLE 

SERIES        .    .  .       .       .       .       .       .629 

XL.    THE  THOMPSON-MYERS  CONTROL     .       .     637 
XLI.    HETEROMATIC  SCRIPT:  MRS.  HOLLAND    .     647 
XLJI.    HETEROMATIC  SCRIPT:  MRS.  VERRALL     .     672 
XUII.    THE  PIPER-HODGSON  IN  AMERICA     .       .     685 
XLIV.    THE  PIPER-HODGSON  IN  AMERICA  (Con- 
tinued)        713 

XLV.   THE  HODGSON  CONTROL  IN  ENGLAND      .     737 

XLVI.    THE  ISAAC  THOMPSON  SERIES  IN  1906     .     749 

XLVII.   CROSS-CORRESPONDENCES     ....     761 

XLVIII.    THE  PIPER-MYERS  AND  THE  CLASSICS     .     774 

XLIX.    THE  PIPER- JUNOT  SITTINGS      .       .       .785 


BOOK  HI 
ATTEMPTS  AT  CORRELATION 

L.    RELATIONS   OF   THE   MEDIUM'S   DREAMS 

WITH  OTHER  DREAMS     ....  830 
LI.    THE  MAKING  OF  A  MEDIUM       .       .       .848 
LJI.    FINAL  GUESSES  REGARDING  POSSESSION    .  864 
LIII.    PROS  AND  CONS  OF  THE  SPIRITISTIC  HY- 
POTHESIS      870 

LIV.    THE  DREAM  LIFE 881 

LV.    DREAMS  INDICATING  SURVIVAL  OF  DEATH  914 


xvi  Contents 

BOOK  IV 
SUPPLEMENT  FOR  SECOND  EDITION 

LVI.    RECENT    PROGRESS.     DR.    CRAWFORD'S    AN- 
NOUNCEMENTS         931 

LVII.    THE  MEDIUMSHIP  OF  MR.  T.  945 

LVIII.    THE  MEDIDMSHIP  OP  "  MRS.  VERNON  "  .       .     962 

LIX.    THE  INVOLUNTARY  WRITERS    .       .       .       .982 

LX.    FINAL  SUMMARY 1000 

LIST  OF  BOOKS 1063 


THE  COSMIC   RELATIONS  AND 
IMMORTALITY 

BOOK  I 

CORRELATED     KNOWLEDGE 

CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTION 

THERE  is  something  more  than  resemblances  of  words  to 
make  this  age  of  wireless  telegraphs,  horseless  carriages,  and 
tuneless  music,  an  age  of  lawless  laws  and  creditlcss  creeds. 
When  new  things  replace  old  ones,  new  conceptions  must 
follow;  and  during  the  transitions,  men's  convictions  are 
suspended.  Accordingly  the  comparatively  recent  realization 
that  the  Cosmos  is  governed  by  law,  uniform,  just,  and  merci- 
less, has  dethroned  the  god  whom  prayer  influences  to  dis- 
turb the  order  of  Nature.  With  such  a  god,  goes  most  that 
such  a  god  implies ;  and  until  we  assimilate  new  conceptions 
of  the  power  behind  the  universe,  we  are  getting  along  with 
a  short  supply  of  faiths,  and  in  some  respects  not  getting 
along  at  all  well.  It  may  not  be  hard  for  instance  to  trace 
the  connection  of  the  lawless  laws  and  creditless  creeds  with 
the  tuneless  music,  or  with  any  other  art  which  has  parted 
with  inspiration.  The  old  views  of  our  Cosmic  Relations 
being  gone,  these  conditions  cry  out  for  new  ones. 

It  is  a  commonplace,  but  a  very  true  one,  that  we  are  apt 
to  attribute  too  much  of  mankind's  well-being  to  recent  dis- 
coveries. Telephones  and  wireless  telegraphs  are  useful  as 
transmitters  of  words  only  if  the  words  say  something  worth 
saying;  and  there  has  not  been  said  as  much  worth  saying 
since  the  invention  of  the  telephone  as  there  was  during  an 
equal  period  before  that  invention.  The  wealth  developed 
by  man's  recently  increased  control  of  nature  has  put  the 


2  Introduction  [Bk.  I 

search  for  wealth  in  front  of  the  searching  of  the  spirit: 
neither  in  production  nor  in  appreciation  have  literature, 
philosophy,  or  the  arts,  the  place  they  had  about  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  science  has  been  turning  more 
and  more  from  the  discovery  of  Nature's  inspiring  laws  to 
the  production  of  wealth.  The  relation  between  man  and 
the  universe  outside  him  has  been  growing  more  mechanical 
and  less  emotional.  True,  the  city  dweller  seeks  Nature  more 
than  he  did,  but  it  is  for  his  body's  sake  rather  than  his  soul's 
sake,  and  he  feels  a  responsive  soul  behind  Nature  less  than 
he  did.  The  fervors,  thrills,  and  longings  of  the  philosopher 
are  gone  with  those  of  the  devotee.  With  them  have  dis- 
appeared the  inspirations  of  the  poet  and  the  artist.  If  they 
come  back,  they  must  come  under  new  forms:  the  old  ones 
are  like  worn-out  garments.  Of  what  the  new  ones  may  be 
we  are  about  to  search  for  some  hints. 

Men  have  always  had  some  sort  of  realization  of  the 
ineffable  mystery  surrounding  what  they  know.  From  the 
savage's  propitiation  of  the  unknown  Power  behind  every 
known  thing,  up  to  Spencer's  predication  of  an  Unknowable 
beside  which  all  we  know  shrinks  toward  nothingness,  that 
mystery  has  been  the  source  of  many  of  our  best  emotions, 
and  often  of  our  dominant  ones.  For  long  periods  and  over 
wide  spaces,  religion  has  been  both  an  inspiration  and  a  con- 
trol. Although  it  was  behind  the  cruelties  of  the  Inquisition 
and  the  asceticisms  of  the  Thebaid,  it  was  no  less  behind  the 
sculpture  of  Greece,  the  painting  of  the  Kenaissance,  the 
poetry  of  the  Divina  Commedia  and  the  Paradise  Lost,  and 
the  music  of  the  Twelfth  Mass  and  the  Stabat  Mater.  What 
perhaps  is  more,  it  filled  the  ages  in  which  lived  makers  of 
other  great  works,  who,  while  showing  no  consciousness  that 
they  were  affected  by  religion,  even  while  contemning  it, 
unconsciously  owed  to  it  much  of  their  inspiration.  This  is 
realized  by  most  of  the  few  living  men  who  experienced  and 
hated  the  Puritan  education  that  survived  beyond  the  first 
half  of  the  last  century.  At  college  they  may  have  hated  to 
go  to  chapel,  especially  when  compelled  to  it  before  daylight 
in  winter,  and  in  the  shortened  holidays  of  June  afternoons; 
they  may  have  despised  many  of  the  dogmas  taught,  and 
even  many  of  the  good  teachers  who  were  too  stupid  to  see  the 


Ch.  I]         Inspirations.    Puritanism.    Infidelity  3 

new  revolutions  rushing  through  thought;  but  despite  all  the 
hatred  and  contempt,  some  of  them  feel  yet  the  thrill  from 
the  old  hymns  sung  in  the  slanting  sunlight  of  the  shortened 
holidays,  and  realize  that  those  thrills  were  akin  to  those  which 
made  that  an  age  of  great  music  and  great  literature — great- 
ness whose  dwindling  makes  this  age  comparatively  barren. 

Yet  the  inspirations  of  Rossini  and  Verdi  and  Abt  and 
Lachner  and  our  own  Foster,  and  those  of  Tennyson  and 
Emerson  came  from  precisely  the  same  universe  that  we  have 
before  us  now — nay,  from  a  much  narrower  one;  but  the 
interpretations  of  it  were  different,  were  generally  accepted 
and  were  embodied  in  a  set  of  enthusiasms  common  to  all  men, 
and  therefore  doubly  inspiring  to  all  men,  even  to  the  few 
whose  emotions  affirmed  when  their  intellects  ignored  or 
denied. 

The  Calvinistic  theology,  with  its  outcrop  of  Puritanism, 
had  made  God  a  tyrant  to  whom  all  joy  in  his  creatures 
was  displeasing.  This  made  morality  consist  in  self-suppres- 
sion. The  master  of  my  preparatory  school,  though  educated 
as  a  physician,  counseled  his  boys  against  drinking  water  in 
hot  weather :  so  far  did  the  conviction  go  that  all  our  desires 
inclined  toward  evil ;  even  in  fevers,  water  was  not  permitted ; 
and  at  Yale  in  my  time,  not  only  were  the  students  forced 
to  go  to  chapel  in  the  dark  mornings  and  winter  storms,  but 
an  offer  to  cushion  the  benches  of  the  chapel  was  rejected  be- 
cause it  was  feared  the  cushions  would  promote  effeminacy. 
At  the  same  time,  in  defiance  of  all  consistency  regarding  the 
effeminacy,  but  most  consistently  regarding  the  asceticism, 
athletics  were  not  encouraged,  partly,  whether  so  realized  or 
not,  because  they  gave  pleasure. 

But  the  reaction  against  those  monstrous  opinions,  in 
dethroning  the  monstrous  god  the  opinions  propitiated,  de- 
throned the  only  god  there  was,  and,  to  the  minds  of  many, 
introduced  a  purely  material  universe — one  without  malevo- 
lence but  equally  without  benevolence — a  Cosmos,  it  is  true, 
because  orderly  and  governed  by  law,  but  with  its  emotional 
elements  ignored,  and  even  its  beauty  dissected  away  in  the 
search  for  causes. 

These  arid  views  were  of  course  possible  only  during  the 
passing  of  an  intense  emotional  reaction.  While  the  relations 


4  Introduction  [Bk.  I 

of  the  Soul  to  God  became  abstractions  too  tenuous  to  con- 
sider, the  interactions  between  the  Soul  and  the  rest  of  the 
Cosmos,  were  more  distinctly  recognized  and  investigated,  and 
it  became  generally  realized  that  of  those  interactions,  hap- 
piness is,  despite  exceptions,  the  natural  result:  indeed,  the 
Cosmos  has  come  to  appear  an  apparatus  for  the  production 
of  happiness,  and,  on  the  whole,  despite  many  failures,  a  very 
successful  one.  At  least  in  our  corner  of  it,  Nature  has  been 
at  work  longer  than  we  can  intelligently  realize,  in  making 
man  "from  the  dust  of  the  earth" — in  evolving  responsive 
matter  from  irresponsive,  and  in  building  up  organisms  of 
responsive  matter  for  no  other  apparent  reason  than  that  the 
responses  may  produce  happiness. 

All  sane  action  is  undertaken  for  the  sake  of  happiness. 
Other  reasons  have  been  given,  but  they  do  not  bear  examina- 
tion. Action  may  be  sane,  however,  and  yet  mistaken,  or 
may  even  be  deliberately  counter  to  the  happiness  of  the 
actor,  in  which  case,  as  in  self-sacrifice  for  another's  sake, 
it  will  be  intended  for  the  happiness  of  someone  other  than 
the  actor — it  may  be  even  for  the  happiness  of  God,  as  in 
the  Juggernaut  sacrifices  no  less  than  in  the  Roman  incense 
or  the  musical  tributes  of  the  rural  New  England  melodeon 
and  choir.  Or  the  action  may  be  counter  to  the  happiness 
of  someone  else,  in  which  case  it  will  be  for  the  happiness 
of  the  actor,  as  in  robbery;  or  of  some  third  person,  as  in 
removing  a  friend's  enemy;  or  again  even  of  God,  as  in 
persecuting  those  who  deny  him. 

Or,  once  more,  the  action  may  be  against  the  immediate 
happiness  of  the  actor,  but  for  his  at-least-supposed  ultimate 
happiness,  as  in  asceticism  for  the  soul's  sake;  or  it  may  be 
against  the  immediate  happiness  of  another,  but  for  his  sup- 
posed ultimate  happiness,  as  in  religious  persecution.  But 
in  whatever  complexities  the  purpose  of  action  may  be  dis- 
guised, it  is,  if  sane,  ultimately  intended  for  happiness — of 
somebody  somewhere.  Counter  theories  have  been  main- 
tained, but  they  have  been  demonstrated  fallacious,  both  in 
logic  and  in  practice. 

The  proposition  that,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  happiness  is 
the  only  known  justification  for  the  existence  of  either  soul 
or  universe,  has  probably  been  the  object  of  more  attack 


Ch.  I]  Happiness,  Duty,  Cosmic  Law  5 

than  any  other  proposition  in  philosophy.  The  opposition, 
however,  has  been  mainly  against  low  definitions  of  the  term 
happiness,  which  the  critics  have  made  for  themselves.  But 
that  proposition  is  supported  even  by  their  suggestion  that 
God  made  both  soul  and  universe  to  amuse  himself — that 
his  eyes  might  be  delighted  by  human  sacrifices,  and  his 
palate  by  their  flesh;  or  that  his  ears  might  be  tickled  by 
melodeons,  and  his  nose  by  incense — such  was  one  idea  of 
Divine  happiness  entertained  by  some  of  those  who  made  the 
suggestion. 

If  happiness  means  the  satisfaction  of  poor  taste,  or  vanity, 
or  sensuality,  or  means  even  mere  amusement,  the  proposition 
is  well  founded.  But  where  does  happiness  bulk  larger — in 
poor  taste,  or  good  taste;  in  vanity,  or  modesty;  in  excess, 
or  temperance;  in  selfishness,  or  generosity;  in  laziness 
or  activity?  If  happiness  is  most  effectively  sought  in  good 
work  relieved  by  the  recreation  essential  to  its  best  efficiency, 
and  directed  to  the  greatest  aggregate  happiness — regarding 
the  happiness  of  the  individual  only  as  a  component  of  that; 
in  love  of  the  beautiful  universe  and  of  the  arts  we  generate 
from  it ;  in  love  of  beautiful  bodies  and  beautiful  souls,  and 
the  beautiful  moral  law;  and  in  grateful,  hopeful,  filial, 
intimate  reverence  for  the  Power  and  Beneficence  obvious 
behind  it  all — if  happiness  comes  mainly  from  these 
things,  who  shall  say  that  its  production  is  not  the  main 
result,  and  the  best  result,  of  all  the  legitimate  activities  we 
know  ?  And  yet  it  is  but  a  by-product  of  duty. 

With  this  view — that  the  cosmic  relations  are  normally 
productive  of  happiness — has  come  the  realization  that  the 
substitution,  in  the  control  of  the  universe,  of  law  for 
anthropomorphic  volitions,  has  not  done  away  with  morality; 
and  that  discrediting  the  testimony  on  which,  in  our  branch 
of  the  race,  the  hopes  of  immortality  had  mainly  rested,  did 
not  destroy  all  bases  for  the  hopes,  especially  as  there  began 
to  appear  new  bases,  which  even  conquered  the  skepticism 
of  many  investigators  to  whom  the  old  ones  appealed  in  vain. 

These  new  mental  attitudes  have  resulted  from  much  dis- 
cussion, but  they  are  still  so  new  that  discussion  can  hardly 
yet  have  become  superfluous,  and  that  any  earnest  writer  may 
hope  to  present  some  aspects  worth  noticing.  In  this  hope 


6  Introduction  [Bk.  I 

I  venture  one  more  consideration  of  our  Cosmic  Eelations — 
one  by  no  means  exhaustive,  even  of  our  present  knowledge, 
but  only  of  some  salient  features  of  it. 

Our  "  Cosmic  Eelations  "  is  a  brief  term  for  the  interactions 
between  Soul  and  Universe.  For  those  interactions  to  be 
successful — which  means  for  them  to  be  productive  of  hap- 
piness, the  actions  on  one  side  must  of  course  be  in  conformity 
with  the  actions  on  the  other.  There  are  actions  on  both 
sides  not  controlled  by  our  wills — on  one  side,  many  of  our 
own  thoughts  and  feelings;  and  on  the  other,  most  of  the 
processes  of  Nature.  But  we  have  always  found  the  actions 
we  do  not  control,  consistent  with  each  other — in  conformity 
with  Nature's  laws,  as  we  phrase  it;  and  when  the  actions 
we  do  control  are  also  in  such  conformity,  the  actions  we  do 
not  control  always  co-operate  with  us,  and  insure  our  success ; 
when  our  actions  are  not  in  conformity,  the  other  actions  op- 
pose us,  and  insure  our  failure.  Conformity  is  what  we  call 
morality. 

With  some  of  the  reactions  we  are  very  familiar,  some 
we  know  vaguely,  there  may  be  others  at  which  we  merely 
guess,  and  probably  the  vast  majority  we  do  not  even  guess 
about.  The  changes  in  our  bodies  on  which  our  mental  and 
physical  well-being  depends,  are  but  very  imperfectly  known 
to  us,  and  many  not  known  at  all.  The  same  is  true  of  con- 
ditions in  our  environment.  We  can  yet  foresee  but  im- 
perfectly the  daily  and  seasonal  changes  of  temperature  and 
moisture  on  which  our  health  and  fortunes  so  largely  depend ; 
and  we  guess  but  faintly  that  there  are  around  us  changes 
of  magnetic  and  electrical  tension  which  materially  affect  our 
vigor  and  spirits,  and  yet  which  we  recognize  but  slowly  and 
vaguely,  and  cannot  anticipate,  much  less  control.  Such, 
however,  as  already  hinted,  is  the  obvious  consistency  of  the 
universe,  that  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  if  we 
deduce  correct  principles  of  conduct  regarding  what  we  know, 
we  will  comport  ourselves  wisely  regarding  what  we  do  not 
know.  The  vast  majority  of  wise  people  have  even  carried 
this  principle  so  far  as  to  believe  that  if  there  is  a  life  beyond 
the  one  we  are  leading,  the  full  use  of  this  one  is  the  best 
possible  preparation  for  that  one.  Some  ascetics,  however, 


Ch.  I]    Philosophy  and  Conduct.    Soul  and  Universe  7 

have  advocated  the  subordination  of  this  one  to  certain  fancies 
which  they  have  entertained  regarding  that  one. 

To  guard  against  such  extremes,  it  is  well  to  know  the 
general  laws  of  the  happiness-producing  Cosmos:  for  they 
indicate  the  right  uses  of  less  general  knowledge.  That  is 
the  reason  for  traditionally  applying  the  term  The  Guide  of 
Life  to  the  general  laws,  embraced  under  the  name  Philoso- 
phy, and  is  why  masters  of  special  arts  have  always  come 
to  learn  from  masters  of  philosophy,  and  why  widespread 
errors  of  philosophy  have  led  to  disastrous  blunders  in  re- 
ligion, statecraft,  economics,  criminology,  physical  science, 
and  invention — blunders  all  the  way  from  attempting  to 
govern  heterogeneous  peoples  by  homogeneous  suffrage,  and 
attempting  to  cure  laziness  by  fostering  it,  down  to  astrology 
and  perpetual  motion. 

As  any  treatment,  however  modest,  of  the  widest  generali- 
ties, must  here  and  there  touch  the  outlines  of  all  we  know, 
to  make  some  sort  of  consistent  whole  it  must  include  many 
things  with  which  most  readers  are  already  familiar.  But 
that  is  an  infirmity  of  nearly  all  exposition:  often  the  best 
that  one  can  hope  to  reach,  is  putting  old  facts  in  new  lights. 

Our  study,  like  all  others,  needs  a  classification  of  subject- 
matter  and  a  terminology,  and  our  classification,  like  all 
others,  cannot  escape  being  a  little  arbitrary,  with  some 
overlapping  at  the  lines  of  division. 

As  already  intimated,  we  will  consider  the  Cosmos  as  con- 
sisting of  the  soul  and  the  universe  external  to  it.  Yet  some 
wise  people  deny  any  such  duality — part  of  them  declaring 
that  there  is  nothing  outside  the  mind,  and  others  declaring 
that  mind  is  only  a  function  of  matter.  Very  well,  we  will 
consider  this  later;  at  present,  for  the  first  class  of  persons, 
let  us  divide  the  contents  of  the  mind  into  what  it  does  not 
project  as  seemingly  outside  itself,  and  what  it  does;  and 
for  the  second  class  of  persons,  let  us  divide  the  functions 
of  matter  into  those  taking  place  in  the  nervous  system,  and 
those  taking  place  outside  of  it.  As  said  before,  no  classifica- 
tion is  faultless,  but  any  one  of  these  will  do  to  work  with, 


8  Introduction  [Bk.  I 

and  the  three  are  nearly  enough  identical  to  permit  the  terms 
of  any  one  to  apply  to  the  others — at  least  closely  enough 
for  our  purposes.  The  terms  in  each  case  may  well  be  cov- 
ered by  the  old-fashioned  words  subjective  and  objective. 

This  is  our  first  illustration  of  something  that  will  come 
before  us  often — and  with  which  the  reader  is  probably 
already  only  too  familiar — the  absence  in  Nature  of  lines  of 
demarcation,  and  the  frequent  necessity  of  assuming  them 
for  purposes  of  study.  As  with  body  and  soul,  so  with  animal 
and  vegetable,  chemical  and  physical,  and  hosts  of  other 
pairs  of  categories.  Of  most  of  the  items  under  any  pair, 
we  can  say:  This  comes  under  one  of  the  pair,  and  this 
under  the  other;  but  there  are  some  which  we  find  it  so 
difficult  to  place  that  we  are  tempted  to  say :  This  comes  under 
both.  Even  to-day  certain  of  the  simplest  organisms  will 
be  found  included  in  both  zoological  and  botanical  text-books. 

Using  our  terms  Soul  and  Universe,  we  place  the  body 
outside  of  the  soul.  But  inside  the  soul  we  recognize  a 
Something  which  says  my  body,  my  sensations,  my  thoughts, 
my  feelings,  my  soul.  This  something  we  know  only  as 
making  such  remarks,  and  claiming  such  possessions ;  but  we 
at  least  give  it  a  name — Consciousness.  But  we  call  even  it, 
my  consciousness.  What  calls  it  so  ?  Another  consciousness  ? 
If  so,  that  too  must  be  "mine,"  and  so  on  ad  infinitum. 
Thus  consciousness,  like  everything  else,  is  ultimately  a 
mystery  beyond  our  faculties.  Yet  we  include  it  with  the 
mass  of  sensations,  thoughts,  and  feelings,  under  the  con- 
ception which,  pace  the  quarrels  of  the  psychologists,  we 
call  Soul. 

Outside  of  the  soul,,  too,  are  other  souls,  which,  in  relation 
to  it,  we  are  to  include  not  in  Soul,  but  in  Universe:  for 
as  happiness  is  mainly  produced  by  the  interactions  between 
one  soul  and  other  souls,  unless  we  did  include  objective  soul 
in  universe,  there  would  be  but  a  sorry  foundation  for  our 
fundamental  proposition  that  the  interactions  between  soul 
and  universe  are  the  cause  of  happiness. 

To  this  proposition  it  may  be  objected  (How  hard  it  is 
to  make  a  proposition  to  which  "  it  may  be  objected  "  never 
applies!)  that  the  soul  derives  happiness  from  its  own  func- 
tions— from  studying  its  own  processes,  contemplating  its 


Ch.  I]  Knowledge,  Experience,  Forecast  9 

memories  and  imaginations,  and  constructing  its  interpreta- 
tions, theories,  and  schemes.  True,  but  all  these  seem  to  have 
their  origin  in  reactions  between  Soul  and  Universe. 

We  will  regard  the  universe  as  consisting  of,  first,  the 
portion  known  to  us;  second,  the  portion  partly  known,  or 
on  the  borderland  between  the  known  and  the  unknown; 
and  third,  the  portion  unknown,  which  is  presumably  im- 
measurably the  largest.  This  classification,  too,  is  like  all 
others,  very  vague  at  the  dividing  lines — so  vague  indeed 
that  we  have  to  begin  by  admitting  the  first  portion  to  be, 
from  one  point  of  view,  identical  with  the  second;  but  we 
will  find  another  point  of  view. 

What  shall  we  understand  by  the  known  universe?  It  is 
really  a  sequence  of  phenomena.  Until  lately  it  was  believed, 
and  is  still  generally  believed,  that  we  can  perceive,  think,  and 
feel  only  through  vibrations  in  the  objective  universe,  includ- 
ing nerve  matter,  and  we  may  as  well  proceed  provisionally 
on  this  belief  until  we  reach  the  reasons  that  may  point  to 
supplementing  it.  Supplementing  belief  seems,  in  this  genera- 
tion, to  have  been  one  of  our  most  important  functions. 

Knowledge  is  the  recognition  of  uniformities  and  differ- 
ences in  the  aforesaid  vibrations,  and  it  is  really  knowledge, 
only  as  it  can  prophesy  uniformities  and  differences  in  new 
vibrations. 

The  ability  thus  to  prophesy  depends  of  course  upon  uni- 
formity and  breadth  of  experience.  Certainty  varies  as  these 
vary,  and  as  there  is  no  final  experience — as  the  sun  may 
not  rise  to-morrow  morning;  as  next  winter  may  be  hot, 
and  next  summer  cold ;  as  anything  and  everything  may  turn 
out  differently  from  what  it  always  has;  there  is  of  course 
no  absolute  certainty.  Or  looking  at  it  from  another  angle : 
if  certainty  means  demonstration  not  open  to  any  possible 
doubt,  absolute  certainty  is  impossible  to  the  human  mind: 
for,  as  has  often  been  said,  absolute  certainty  would  need 
infinite  evidence,  whose  accumulation  would  require  infinite 
time.  Meanwhile  "  absolute  "  and  "  infinite  "  are  words  which 
are  merely  confessions  of  ignorance,  and  therefore  "  absolute 
certainty"  is  not  only  unattainable,  but  unthinkable;  and 
over  all  this,  some  diseased  minds  have  made  a  great  pother. 


10  Introduction  [Bk.  I 

But  it  is  a  far  cry  from  such  considerations,  to  the  in- 
ference of  the  pessimists  that  as  human  knowledge  is  not 
certain,  it  is  useless.  We  have  found  practical  certainty,  in 
the  vast  majority  of  instances,  as  reliable  as  absolute  certainty 
could  have  been ;  and  our  uncertain  knowledge  is  not  only  the 
best  knowledge  we  have,  but  it  is  good  enough.  Our  degree 
of  certainty  that  the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow  morning,  and 
that  things  will  go  as  they  have  gone,  except  as  their  totality 
improves,  has  been  a  guide  to  all  human  effort,  and  a  basis  for 
all  human  happiness.  Though  the  disasters  that  have  come 
from  mistakes  have  been  many  and  serious,  they  have  not 
been  enough  to  prevent  life  being  generally  worth  while  to 
sane  people  not  given  to  pessimism — if  any  sane  people  are. 
There  are  those  for  whom  the  only  certainty  possible  to  men  is 
not  enough.  Their  trouble,  however,  is  not  with  their  mental 
food,  but  with  their  mental  digestion.  They  need  the  help 
of  the  alienist  rather  than  the  philosopher. 

One  often  meets  a  general  statement  that  the  fact  of  evolu- 
tion of  our  faculties  and  of  our  knowledge  of  the  Cosmos  up 
to  the  present  stages,  demonstrates  that  the  evolution  of  both 
will  continue,  and  that  therefore  there  must  be  not  only  a  uni- 
verse, astronomical  and  microscopical,  outside  the  one  we 
know,  but  also  an  unknown  universe  within  the  one  we  partly 
know,  and  that  this  is  as  true  of  mind  as  it  is  of  matter. 
But  I  have  never  seen  an  attempt  to  make  this  abstract  state- 
ment more  realizable — more  like  the  fruitful  knowledge  we 
have  of  visible  and  tangible  things,  by  a  sketch  of  evolution 
contrasting  our  universe  with  the  universe  of  our  primitive 
ancestors,  and  drawing  from  the  contrast  the  legitimate  in- 
ferences regarding  the  wider  capacities  and  wider  universe 
unknown  to  us,  presumably  infinitely  vaster  than  those  we 
know,  and  presumably  to  be  enjoyed  by  our  descendants,  and 
possibly  by  ourselves  in  some  other  plane  of  being. 

The  mysteries  of  that  unknown  universe  of  mind  and  matter 
have  always  been  contemplated  with  awe,  alike  by  the  primi- 
tive savage  and  the  most  advanced  saint  and  mystic,  and 
this  awe  has  been  the  parent  of  most  of  the  religious  emotions. 
But  the  developments  in  the  universe  of  our  daily  experience 
during  the  past  century,  have  been  so  much  greater  than 
ever  before — have  so  increased  our  control  over  the  powers 


Ch.  I]    Consciousness  of  the  Unknown.  Plan  of  this  Work   11 

of  Nature,  and  with  it  our  wealth,  that  never  perhaps,  cer- 
tainly never  since  the  luxurious  days  of  Rome,  have  men's 
thoughts  been  so  diverted  from  the  mysteries  and  emotions 
which  have  marked  the  great  religious  ages.  Those  ages 
have  had  their  extremes,  but  ours  is  in  the  opposite  extreme, 
and  sadly  needs  to  have  a  portion  of  its  interests  lifted  from 
Lombard  Street  and  Wall  Street,  not  to  speak  of  the  Savoy 
and  the  Waldorf-Astoria. 

Without  a  large  consciousness  of  the  universe  beyond  our 
knowledge,  few  men,  if  any,  have  done  great  things.  The 
consciousness  may  have  been  mingled  with  dark  and  cruel 
superstitions,  but  it  has  been  effective  in  spite  of  them.  Even 
poor  Napoleon  had  it,  and  if  his  age  had  not  been  enough  like 
ours  to  afford  him  but  a  niggard  supply,  he  might  not  have 
been  the  pitiable  failure  he  was. 

The  task  I  have  set  myself  is,  first,  to  attempt  (in  Book  I) 
some  such  sketch  of  evolution  as  may  impress,  more  than 
abstract  statements  can,  a  living  consciousness  of  the  exist- 
ence of  the  universe  beyond  our  knowledge.  For  such  a 
sketch  the  facts  are  yet  meager,  and  have  to  be  pieced  together 
by  not  a  little  guesswork.  Moreover,  they  largely  relate  to 
primitive  and  uninteresting  things,  and  I  fear  my  sketch 
will  be  dull,  especially  in  the  early  stages,  where  its  relation 
to  its  object  cannot  be  very  obvious.  Moreover,  as  it  must 
deal  largely  with  commonplaces  of  knowledge,  you  may  be 
impatient  unless  I  am  fortunate  enough  to  lead  you  constantly 
to  regard  them  as  links  in  a  chain  of  demonstration  which, 
when  completed,  may  possibly  repay  your  attention. 

As  soon  as  you  find  yourself  bored,  which  I  greatly  fear 
you  will,  it  may  still  be  worth  while  to  turn  to  Chapter  V. 
There,  after  you  skip  what  I  fear  may  be  some  "  fine  writing  " 
that  I  have  been  betrayed  into,  you  will  find  the  gist  of  every- 
thing between  here  and  there ;  and  in  Chapter  VIII  you  will 
find  the  beginning  of  some  things  that  may  not  have  to  de- 
pend on  any  powers  of  mine  to  make  you  "  sit  up  and  take 
notice." 

Having  done  what  I  can  to  arouse  an  interest  in  the 
Unknown,  I  shall  proceed  (in  Book  II)  to  give  some  account 
of  a  mass  of  phenomena  which  of  late  have  fitfully  emerged 


12  Introduction  [Bk.  I 

from  the  Unknown,  and  which  although  they  seem  to  have 
always  been  more  or  less  a  part  of  man's  reactions  with  the 
Universe  of  both  mind  and  matter,  have  been  so  small  a  part 
that,  while  they  raise  questions  of  the  highest  importance,  they 
have  been  little  explained — that  is  to  say:  little  correlated 
'  with  the  mass  of  verified  and  usable  knowledge. 

Incidentally,  and  especially  in  conclusion  (in  Book  III), 
I  shall  offer  the  leading  guesses,  and  some  of  my  own,  as  to 
the  possible  correlations  and  implications  of  these  uncorrelated 
phenomena,  and  the  answers  they  offer  to  the  questions  they 
raise. 

The  last  two  books  I  trust  will  not  tax  the  reader's  patience 
as  severely  as  the  first  one. 

We  proceed  now  to  the  threatened  sketch  of  evolution  with 
reference  to  its  demonstration  of  a  universe  beyond  our 
knowledge. 


CHAPTER  II 
SKETCH  OF  HUMAN  EVOLUTION 

The  Body 

FIRST  for  a  rough  survey  of  the  apparatus  through  which 
the  Soul  maintains  its  reactions  with  the  Universe.  As  this 
apparatus  is  evolved,  its  presumptive  farther  evolution  involves 
a  farther  evolution  of  its  functions,  which  means  an  increase 
of  the  reactions  between  Soul  and  Universe;  and  that  means 
an  increase  of  happiness.  At  the  outset,  the  survey  of  the 
evolution  of  the  apparatus  may  seem  going  over  too  familiar 
ground,  but  it  will  contain  some  implications  that  are  not 
very  familiar,  and  that  are  ancillary  to  our  main  purpose. 
It  will  also  help  some  more  specific  work  later.  Moreover 
generally,  probably  always,  the  best  way  to  study  things  and 
their  relations  is  to  begin  with  their  evolution. 

Evolution  began  anterior  to  our  knowledge,  but  it  is  now 
going  on  in  things  so  much  like  any  one  we  may  wish  to 
study,  that  we  can  generally  get  a  fair  notion  of  that  thing's 
evolution,  through  the  similar  evolutions  going  on  around  us. 
For  instance,  from  hints  we  get  from  other  suns  and  systems, 
and  from  the  action  of  mechanical  laws  that  we  know,  we 
have  made  a  history  of  the  evolution  of  our  solar  system; 
and  although  no  man  ever  saw  that  evolution,  our  history 
of  it  is  probably  more  reliable  than  many  histories  of  human 
events  that  profess  to  be  made  from  the  reports  of  witnesses. 
Similarly  regarding  the  evolution  of  plants  and  animals  and 
intelligence :  we  have  primitive  protoplasm  and  many  primi- 
tive organisms  with  us  now,  and  by  watching  them,  and  seeds 
and  embryos  which  repeat  their  own  ancestral  evolution,  we 
have  learned  much  of  the  past  biological  evolution  of  which 
we  are  the  summit. 

As  we  know   (in  the  sense  of  "knowing"  already  ex- 
plained), the  evolution  of  the  human  body  took  its  start,  if 
18 


14  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

we  wish  to  assume  a  start  anywhere,  an  immeasurable  time 
ago,  in  a  cell  of  protoplasm. 

The  most  primitive  individual  creature  that  we  know  is 
the  amoeba.  It  is  little  more  than  a  nucleated  cell  of 
protoplasm,  and  yet  it  does  queer  things.  But  first  let  us 
see  if  we  can  get  behind  it  to  a  connection  with  inorganic 
nature:  for  inorganic  objects  do  queer  things  too. 

Professor  Holmes  says  (Evolution  of  Animal  Intelligence, 
p.  67) : 

"  There  are  various  ways  of  imitating  the  movements  of 
Amoeba  by  drops  of  oil  or  other  fluids  subjected  to  changes 
of  surface  tension.  If  a  drop  of  mercury  is  placed  in  dilute 
nitric  acid  and  a  piece  of  potassium  bichromate  placed  near 
it  the  drop  of  mercury  will  bulge  out  toward  the  bichromate 
and  may  surround  it.  The  bichromate  as  it  diffuses  against 
the  mercury  causes  a  diminution  of  surface  tension  at  the 
region  of  contact.  The  stronger  contraction  of  the  rest  of 
the  surface  film  forces  the  mercury  to  protrude  at  the  weakest 
point,  producing  an  outpushing  resembling  the  pseudopod " 
[false  foot]  "  of  the  Amoeba.  It  has  been  contended  that  varia- 
tions in  surface  tension  account  in  great  measure  for  the 
movements  of  Amoeba  and  other  Khizopods  much  as  in  inor- 
ganic fluids.  There  is  certainly  a  striking  analogy  between 
the  phenomena  in  the  two  cases,  but  the  studies  of  Jennings 
have  shown  that  explanation  of  the  phenomena  is  not  quite 
so  simple." 

Elsewhere  Professor  Holmes  tells  us  that  a  drop  of  water 
will  swallow  a  fine  splinter  of  glass,  and  that  a  drop  of 
chloroform  will  also,  if  the  splinter  is  covered  with  shellac, 
and  will  eject  it  after  the  shellac  is  dissolved  and  becomes 
part  of  the  drop.  A  drop  of  protoplasm  with  a  nucleus,  which 
we  call  an  amoeba,  will  swallow  pretty  much  anything  it  can 
manage  to  flow  around,  and  after  treating  it,  so  far  as  con- 
ditions permit,  as  the  drop  of  chloroform  treats  the  shel- 
lac, will  eject  what  remains,  as  the  chloroform  does  the 


In  view  of  such  facts,  one  is  almost  tempted  to  ask  whether 
the  desire  to  draw  an  arbitrary  line  between  "physical  and 
chemical  processes,"  on  the  one  hand;  and  on  the  other  the 
"  super-physical  agency  . . .  vital  principle,  or  entelechy  of 
some  sort/'  may  not  be  simply  the  old  theological  prejudice, — 


Ch.  II]  Origin  of  Life.    Protozoa  15 

and  whether  organic  and  inorganic  are  not  simply  two  aspects 
of  the  same  thing. 

To  determine  where,  in  the  three  performances  above  de- 
scribed, life  begins,  certainly  will  give  material  for  debate  to 
those  fond  of  the  exercise.  Perhaps  the  question  can  be 
settled  by  the  fact  that  you  and  I  can  be  pretty  closely  proved 
to  be  descended  from  drops  of  protoplasm,  and  nobody  yet 
heard  from  can  be  nearly  as  closely  proved  to  be  descended 
from  drops  of  water  or  even  drops  of  mercury  or  chloroform 
or  oil,  though  the  chloroform  is  complex  matter,  and  the  oil  is 
organic  matter. 

Professor  Holmes  (op.  cit.)  is  my  principal  authority 
for  the  statements  immediately  following: 

In  the  material  of  amcebae  and  other  low  forms,  various 
chemical  reagents  inserted  in  the  water  they  inhabit,  awaken 
reactions  which  lead  to  changes  in  form,  sometimes  enough 
to  produce  motion  of  the  organism,  and  lead  it  to  or  away 
from  the  reagent  It  is  thus  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  in 
the  simpler  creatures,  to  draw  the  line  between  chemical 
reaction  and  animal  motion,  and  even  purposeful  motion  in 
creatures  a  little  higher  still. 

So  with  the  effects  of  gravity — some  of  these  creatures 
find  their  way  to  the  bottom  of  the  receptacle,  and  others 
to  the  top.  Chemical  reactions,  especially  variations  in  the 
amount  of  oxygen,  combine  with  gravity  in  producing  these 
motions. 

Light,  too,  is  an  agent;  and  when  the  spectrum  has  been 
thrown  on  the  water,  there  has  been  a  marked  clustering  of 
some  creatures  toward  the  red  end.  Often  clusters  form  in 
response  to  the  conditions — for  instance  around  a  drop  of 
some  reagent,  sometimes  to  their  destruction,  though  oftener 
to  their  betterment.  If  an  electric  current  is  sent  through  a 
mass  of  amoebae,  it  will  move  itself,  or  part  of  itself,  toward 
the  cathode.  All  may  go,  or,  if  the  current  is  very  strong, 
the  point  near  the  anode  may  contract  and  disintegrate. 

Paramecia,  worms  and  mollusks  generally  react  to  elec- 
tricity negatively,  and  crustaceans  positively. 

Masses  of  amabse  elongate  themselves  toward  favoring 
objects — throw  out  pseudopods — and  attach  themselves.  We 
envy  the  crab  who,  if  he  happens  to  lose  a  limb,  develops  a 


16  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

new  one,  but  the  crab  may  envy  the  amoeba  who  makes  his 
limbs  as  he  needs  them — extrudes  a  pseudopod  in  the  direction 
where  his  reactions  send  him,  and  flows  the  rest  of  himself 
up  into  the  pseudopod.  Then  he  will  do  it  again,  and  so 
travel. 

Amoebae  also  get  (make  themselves?)  top-heavy,  and  roll 
over,  and  keep  it  up  till  they  have  traveled  an  appreciable 
distance.  Creatures  a  degree  higher  have  more  or  less  per- 
manent cilia  which  they  use  similarly,  and  by  which  they 
regulate  their  motions.  A  grade  farther  on,  these  cilia  become 
a  swimming  apparatus — in  later  evolution,  the  tentacles  of 
the  octopus;  or  the  creatures  may  evolve,  instead  of  cilia  or 
tentacles,  a  curtain  like  that  of  the  jelly-fish. 

The  cell  of  protoplasm  has,  in  a  sense,  no  interior  organiza- 
tion: it  gets  all  its  nutriment  and  sensations  (if  it  has  any) 
from  its  surface — from  outside.  But  its  descendants  tend 
to  evolve  into  sacs  or  tubes,  and  the  water  flowing  through 
the  opening  of  the  sac  or  tube  supplies  some  nutriment  and 
sensations  inside.  This  differentiation  soon  becomes  marked, 
the  nutriment  being  taken  up  more  and  more  from  the 
inside,  and  distributed  through  a  system  of  minor  tubes  which 
become  evolved  throughout  the  material  composing  the  prin- 
cipal one. 

In  time,  the  central  tube  evolves  a  bulge  which  acts  as  a 
stomach,  a  gland  shows  up  alongside  it,  and  that  pestilent 
organ  a  liver  is  introduced  into  the  world,  perhaps  con- 
temporaneously with  original  sin. 

In  time  the  lower  end  of  the  tube  differentiates  into  various 
sorts  of  intestines,  and  appendicitis  becomes  a  fashionable 
possibility.  The  upper  end  differentiates  into  a  mouth,  and 
when  the  mouth  becomes  human,  not  only  do  its  lips  and 
teeth  become  beautiful,  but  eating  itself  becomes  a  fine  art, 
and  a  well-managed  dinner  table  becomes  a  great  educational 
and  political  influence. 

The  subsidiary  apparatus  for  circulating  the  blood  also 
develops  into  a  pumping  engine  and  system  of  intakes — 
arteries,  and  one  of  outlets — veins,  for  the  waste  left  after 
the  nutritive  matter  has  parted  with  its  force.  This  waste 
is  deposited  in  reservoirs  from  which  it  is  discharged  period- 


Ch.  II]  Digestive  Organs,  Limbs,  Nerves  17 

ically.  Were  it  discharged  constantly,  as  it  is  made,  all  re- 
finement of  life,  and  present  attractions  of  human  beings  for 
each  other,  would  be  non-existent.  The  circulatory  and  ex- 
cretory system  also  does  its  share  for  the  aesthetic,  in  supply- 
ing red  lips  and  pink  cheeks  and  the  flushes  of  emotion, 
and  Cleopatra's  "  bluest  vein." 

Meantime  is  evolved  a  parallel  tube  for  gaseous  food  and 
waste.  It  opens  into  the  mouth,  and  below  ramifies  into 
lungs,  and,  like  the  other  tubes,  in  time  makes  its  contribution 
to  intelligence  and  beauty:  for  it  contains  the  apparatus  for 
the  voices  of  Patti  and  Caruso,  and  an  extension  of  it  was 
covered  by  that  same  Cleopatra's  nose  upon  whose  dimensions 
Pascal  rested  the  fortunes  of  the  world. 

On  the  way  up  to  all  this,  parts  of  the  body  surrounding 
the  original  tube  have  differentiated,  as  already  partly  in- 
timated, into  the  curtain  of  the  jelly-fish,  the  radiates  of  the 
star-fish,  the  feelers  of  the  octopus,  the  fins  and  tail  of  the 
vertebrate  fish,  the  paddles  of  the  amphibious  lizard,  the 
wings  and  legs  of  the  bird,  the  legs  of  the  quadruped;  and 
at  length  the  arms  and  legs  from  which  are  modeled  those 
of  the  Apollos  and  Venuses. 

To  receive  the  sensations  which  all  these  pieces  of  appa- 
ratus pick  up  (including  the  aches  announcing  that  they 
need  attention),  and  to  direct  their  consequent  activities, 
there  is  gradually  evolved  throughout  the  body  a  nervous 
system.  It  begins  at  the  surface,  where  it  gets  its  sensations 
from  the  external  universe. 

A  very  primitive  nervous  system  is  an  afferent  nerve  near 
the  surface,  bringing  sensation  to  a  ganglion,  and  from  the 
ganglion  an  efferent  nerve  going  to  some  sort  of  contractile 
tissue  near  the  surface.  The  surfaces  of  some  primitive 
animals  are  covered  with  such  rudimentary  systems — the 
earliest  distinguishable  ones  being  little  more  than  ganglia 
alone,  which,  in  addition  to  producing  contractions,  in  some 
way  influence  the  surface  nutrition  and,  in  time,  the  tem- 
perature. 

But  by  and  by  these  rudimentary  systems  get  integrated 
into  higher  systems;  two  ganglia  may  be  connected  by  a 
nerve,  or  each  connected  with  a  third  ganglion,  and  by  the 


18  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

intervention  of  the  third  ganglion  the  afferent  nerve  to  the 
first  ganglion  may  provoke  an  answer  through  the  efferent 
nerve  from  the  second:  so  that  a  message  that  a  surface  spot 
itches,  is  not  offset  by  a  mere  message  from  the  ganglion  to 
the  spot  to  contract,  but  by  a  message  through  a  different 
ganglion  to  a  beak  or  a  claw  or  a  hand,  to  scratch  it. 

Farther,  two  of  such  systems  of  three  ganglia  each,  may 
be  connected  through  each  third  ganglion  with  a  seventh. 
And  in  this  system,  of  seven,  an  afferent  bringing  a  report 
from  any  of  the  six,  may  start,  by  way  of  the  seventh,  an 
afferent  from  any  other  of  the  six,  or  perhaps  all  of  them. 
There  may  be  a  scratch  ordered  from  one,  a  cry  from  another, 
a  reflection  on  the  cussedness  of  fleas  from  another,  and  so  on. 

Two  such  sets  of  seven  ganglia  may  both,  by  connection 
with  a  fifteenth  ganglion,  be  incorporated  into  a  set  of  fifteen, 
and  then  there  will  probably  be  some  philosophizing,  perhaps 
not  only  regarding  the  cussedness  of  fleas,  but  possibly  re- 
garding a  universe  where  fleas  are  possible,  or  even  a  god  who 
permits  them. 

These  incorporations  are  not  as  systematic  as  described, 
but  take  place  in  all  conceivable  fashions.  Moreover  they 
need  not  be  between  ganglia  connected  by  lines  of  nerves, 
but  in  most  cases  they  actually  are  between  adjacent  cells 
connected  in  all  sorts  of  ways  by  prolongations  from  globular 
or  oval  centers.  Masses  of  cells  so  connected  by  many  varying 
affixes,  make  up  still  larger  ganglia;  and  in  the  higher  ani- 
mals, the  largest  of  these  is  the  brain. 

Meanwhile  the  nerves  at  the  surface  have  multiplied  until, 
as  any  pin-prick  will  prove,  they  are  as  close  together  as 
some  of  the  early  casuists  supposed  the  angels  were  on  the 
needle's  point. 

The  ends  of  the  afferent  nerves  all  over  the  surface,  includ- 
ing the  sense  organs,  get  intelligence  from  the  external  world, 
and  transmit  it  to  the  first  point  where  something  is  done 
about  it — at  least  to  the  first  point  where  the  nerve  carrying 
intelligence  in,  meets,  in  a  nerve-bunch  or  ganglion,  a  nerve 
carrying  orders  out.  This  meeting  may  be  in  a  ganglion  on 
the  way  to  the  brain,  or  in  the  brain  itself. 

In  the  first  case,  the  return  message  goes  to  the  muscles 
near  the  affected  spot,  before  the  nerve  from  the  spot  affects 


Ch.  II]  Sympathetic  Nervous  System  19 

the  intelligence  at  all ;  and  the  muscle  gives  some  involuntary 
jerk.  Or  possibly  the  afferent  nerve  current  will  pass  on, 
perhaps  through  sundry  ganglia,  to  the  brain  itself.  In  this 
case,  before  any  efferent  message  goes  back,  the  situation  may 
be  thought  over — it  may  be  concluded,  for  instance,  that 
scratching  is  more  trouble  than  it's  worth,  and  no  orders  are 
issued,  except  sometimes  a  very  imperative  order  to  keep 
still,  if  the  itching,  or  the  impulse  to  sneeze,  or  perhaps  the 
impulse  to  say  something  questionable,  should  be  dangerously 
strong. 

Mingled  with  the  lacework  of  afferent  nerves  to  carry  sen- 
sations from  the  surface  of  the  body,  but  preponderantly 
behind  them,  is  the  network  of  efferent  nerves  leading  to  the 
muscles.  Then,  mainly  well  below  the  surface,  both  the 
afferent  nerves  and  the  efferent  nerves  begin  to  join  each 
other,  not  only  in  ganglia,  as  stated,  but  also  in  "cables" 
going  to  other  ganglia,  the  cables  uniting  into  larger  ones 
until  these  last  go  to  the  backbone,  and  one  of  them  passes 
in  on  each  side  between  each  pair  of  vertebrae,  and  there 
unites  with  the  principal  cable  of  all,  and  passes  up  into 
the  brain. 

A  preparation  of  a  human  nervous  system  in  the  Jardin 
des  Plantes  looks  like  a  statue  of  lace:  so  here  again,  as  in 
every  piece  of  apparatus  or  every  function  we  have  been  con- 
sidering, evolution  has  been  toward  beauty,  even  though  hid- 
den beauty. 

This  is  a  rough  sketch  of  the  apparatus  for  the  soul's 
voluntary  reaction  with  the  universe,  whether  the  soul  be  a 
mere  capacity  to  react  to  touch,  or  a  capacity  to  receive  im- 
pressions and  ideas,  and  issue  directions  and  ideas,  with  the 
power  of  a  Bismarck  or  a  Shakespere. 

In  addition  to  the  apparatus  for  voluntary  reaction,  is 
one  in  some  respects  more  interesting  still,  and,  as  will  become 
plainer  as  we  proceed,  more  related  to  our  present  task.  In 
fact  the  sketch  of  the  nervous  system  already  given,  serves 
our  immediate  purpose  only  as  contributing  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  sketch  we  are  about  to  give.  In  ffont  of 
the  spinal  column,  and  on  its  respective  sides,  are  two  other 
cables  which  do  not  go  to  the  brain,  and  into  which  enter 


20  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

nerves  from  all  the  organs  that  act  independently,  or  partly 
independently,  of  the  will — the  heart,  the  lungs,  the  digestive 
organs,  even  the  sweat  pores  on  the  skin,  which  help  to  regu- 
late the  temperature  of  the  body.  These  cables  have  several 
ganglia  which  act  like  subsidiary  brains  in  regulating  the 
actions  of  the  connecting  organs. 

The  two  nervous  systems  may  be — probably  often  have 
been,  respectively  called  voluntary  and  involuntary,  though 
they  connect  with  each  other  so  that,  regarding  respiration, 
for  instance,  they  are  both  voluntary  and  involuntary;  and, 
as  in  walking,  playing  music,  or  in  some  tricks  of  legerdemain, 
the  voluntary  one  may  be  trained  into  almost  involuntary 
action.  Our  wills  control  the  first  system,  being  limited  only 
by  our  powers  and  whatever  unresponsiveness  there  may  be 
in  the  environment.  With  the  other  system  (generally  called 
the  sympathetic)  our  wills  have  little  to  do,  except  so  far 
as  our  knowledge  and  discretion  affect  the  body's  health. 

If  the  conscious  purposeful  human  soul  controls  the  nerves 
— or  most  of  them,  which  center  in  the  brain,  what  controls 
the  nerves  centering  in  the  sympathetic  system,  where  the 
human  will  does  not  enter?  There  are  overwhelming  reasons 
for  recognizing  it  as  the  same  power  that  makes  and  vitalizes 
the  flowers  and  the  sequoia,  the  unthinking  monad  and  the 
scarcely-more-thinking  whale;  causes  the  sun  to  lift  moisture 
and  to  gild  the  clouds  in  which  it  floats;  causes  the  air  to 
float  them,  and  the  shifting  wind  to  send  them  back  to  earth 
in  storms  and  with  lightnings — the  same  power  that  causes 
the  sun  to  burn,  that  rolls  us  away  from  him  by  night,  that 
swings  the  other  planets  around  him,  and  all  the  planets  of 
other  systems  around  their  suns,  and  all  (the  word  begins  to 
lose  meaning  here)  the  suns  around  each  other ;  and  still  the 
same  power  that  has  evolved  and  sustains  the  mind  of  man 
to  learn  these  things — the  power  for  which  we  may  as  well, 
perhaps,  use  the  old  name  God,  with  all  its  reverend  associa- 
tions, and  despite  all  its  besmirchings.  The  name  can  often 
save  a  lot  of  circumlocution,  and  we  need  not  confine  it 
to  the  anthropomorphic  conceptions  generally  associated 
with  it. 

Our  limitations  being  what  they  are,  it  is  fortunate  that 
we  do  not  have  to  take  entire  care  of  ourselves,  and  that  so 


Ch.  II]  The  Power  not  Ourselves  21 

much  care  of  us  is  taken  by  that  "  Power  not  ourselves.'* 
If  we  had  to  take  thought  to  pump  our  own  hearts  and 
lungs,  digest  our  food,  secrete  our  bile,  and  perform  the  other 
functions  essential  to  keep  us  in  condition,  we  would  forget, 
keep  constantly  ailing,  or  be  letting  something  stop;  and  if 
it  were  the  heart,  we  should  die.  In  fact,  if  we  had  to 
attend  to  these  functions  from  the  beginning,  we  cannot 
conceive  of  our  growing  up  at  all;  we  cannot  even  conceive 
of  our  existence  starting  at  all,  if  "God"  had  not  started 
it  for  us.  "  He  "  sets  the  little  apparatus  going,  and  brings 
it  to  maturity,  but  allowing  us,  as  it  goes  on,  to  do  for 
ourselves  as  much  as  we  can  do  well,  and  more. 

Where  and  how  did  the  apparatus  start?  Nobody  knows. 
Nobody  knows  where  anything  started— even  a  train  of  cars. 
Did  it  start  at  the  station,  or  in  the  factories,  or  in  the  ore 
beds,  or  in  the  star  dust,  or  in  the  previous  system  smashed 
into  star  dust,  or  in  the  star  dust  that  made  that  system, 
or  where?  In  all  our  classifications,  we  have  to  assume  a 
starting-point  with  reference  to  the  inquiry  at  hand.  Whether 
we  begin  man,  as  we  have  done,  in  primitive  protoplasm, 
or  in  the  cell  differentiated  from  the  male  parent,  the  will 
and  the  power  that  assimilate  and  integrate  and  differentiate 
him,  are  both  his  own  and  not  his  own.  If  the  soul  creates 
the  body  (for  which  proposition  Dr.  William  H.  Thomson, 
in  his  new  book  on  Brain  and  Personality,  makes  the  latest 
argument  and  one  of  the  best),  the  soul  must  be  both  the 
spark  of  life  in  the  parent  cell,  and  the  power  working  outside 
of  the  independent  volition  of  that  cell,  even  when  matured. 
There  will  be  significant  things  to  say  about  this  later. 

The  Senses 

So  much  in  general  for  the  apparatus  through  which  the 
reactions  between  soul  and  universe  take  place.  Now  let  us 
proceed  to  the  more  specific  reactions.  This  will  involve  a 
more  specific  consideration  of  some  portions  of  the  apparatus. 
Here  too  we  have  to  choose  our  starting-point  Star  dust  may 
be  a  little  too  primitive,  though  I  confess  that  I,  for  one, 
cannot  conceive  of  anything  physical  or  spiritual  without 
its  start  at  least  that  eirly.  But  let  us  start  with  as  primitive 
a  thing  as  we  are  familiar  with. 


22  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

A  bit  of  rock  reacts  to  gravity.  Is  there  any  sign  of  soul 
versus  universe  there?  Hardly. 

Non-magnetic  ore  reacts  to  magnetic  ore.  Any  sign  there? 
Not  yet  probably. 

A  bit  of  protoplasm,  or  the  sensitive  plant,  expands  to 
heat,  or  contracts  to  cold.  The  puzzle  begins:  there  is  life 
indeed,  but  expansion  and  contraction  with  heat  and  cold 
are  no  evidence  of  life :  inanimate  things  show  that.  But 
when  an  animate  thing  does  it,  may  it  not  mark  a  transition 
toward  consciousness? 

The  bit  of  protoplasm,  or  the  sensitive  plant,  contracts  to 
touch,  and  restores  itself;  the  puzzle  thickens:  a  rubber  ball 
will  do  that,  but  the  ball's  contraction  is  only  in  proportion 
to  the  degree  of  the  pressure,  while  the  protoplasm's  or  the 
plant's  contraction  may  be  much  greater  or  less  than  the 
degree  of  pressure. 

We  have  no  doubt  about  that  being  a  vital  reaction — some- 
thing that  no  inorganic  thing  will  do;  or  if  we  find  it  done 
by  anything  before  called  inorganic,  we  will,  I  suppose,  at 
once  call  that  thing  organic. 

Such  primitive  responses,  although  there  were,  strictly 
speaking,  no  nerves,  were  the  first  germs  of  nervous  reaction. 
As  evolution  went  on,  however,  portions  of  the  primitive  homo- 
geneous substance  were  more  and  more  differentiated  into 
nerve,  and  nerve  differentiated  and  integrated  into  brain. 

Touch,  as  distinct  from  the  special  senses,  is  hardly  differ- 
entiated at  all.  Very  early  in  the  scale  of  being,  any  portion 
of  the  surface  contracts  when  touched.  Some  portions  are 
more  sensitive  than  other  portions.  Gradually  from  the  sur- 
face with  its  one  sense  of  touch,  were  differentiated,  from  the 
more  sensitive  portions,  organs  of  special  sense:  response  to 
contact  with  material  objects  being  gradually  refined  into 
response  to  objects  so  nearly  immaterial  as  odors,  as  air 
in  vibration  appealing  to  a  gradually  developed  sense  of 
hearing,  and  as  (we  assume)  ether  in  vibration  appealing  to 
a  gradually  developed  sense  of  sight. 

Light  produces  all  sorts  of  changes  in  inorganic  matter, 
find  organic  matter  is  less  stable  than  even  inorganic.  Light 
has  been  impinging  upon  organic  matter  a  long  time:  it  is 
inconceivable  that  no  changes  should  result,  and  that  sus- 


Ch.  II]  Evolution  of  Sight  23 

ceptibility  to  the  touch  of  .rays  of  light  should  not  appear 
stronger  in  some  spots  than  in  others.  (For  the  reasons, 
read  a  hundred  or  two  pages  of  Spencer's  First  Principles.) 
In  the  course  of  generations,  perhaps  as  the  result  of  chemical 
changes,  such  spots  have  become  discolored  by  some  sort  of 
pigment,  and  the  dark  color  increases  the  amount  of  light 
absorbed.  Farther  differentiations  take  place  until  we  find 
features  that  we  deliberate  about  calling  eyes;  and  a  few 
thousand  generations  farther  on,  we  unhesitatingly  call  them 
eyes. 

The  conception  of  the  evolution  of  the  senses  thus  becomes 
easy,  and  the  placing  of  its  evidences  in  sequence  in  the  labor- 
atory, has  been  but  a  matter  of  detail.  It  has  been  easy  to 
find  the  points  where  primitive  eyes,  or  pigment  patches,  which 
would  respond  to  white  light,  grow  responsive  to  blue  light — 
or  to  red  or  orange  or  yellow  or  green  or  indigo  or  violet; 
and  similar  points  regarding  response  by  other  senses.  If 
receptacles  of  different  colors  are  offered  to  mosquitoes,  they 
avoid  the  yellow  ones.  This  has  led  some  recent  investigators 
in  mosquito  regions  to  dress  themselves  and  cover  their  shel- 
ters with  yellow. 

When  pigment  first  appears,  it  is  generally  flat  behind 
the  light-receiving  tissues,  and  so  can  receive  light  from 
but  one  direction ;  but  later  it  and  the  receiving  cells  curve, 
and  so  become  capable  of  receiving  light  from  more  direc- 
tions, and  finally  the  curvature  becomes,  as  in  most  seeing 
animals,  the  lining  of  a  globe. 

The  stained  skin  gradually  develops  into  a  crystal-clear 
lens  on  the  outer  surface  of  a  ball  filled  with  clear  jelly,  and 
on  the  back  of  its  interior,  the  nerve,  which  first  reported 
only  the  difference  between  light  and  dark,  becomes  spread 
out  into  the  sensitive  plate  of  a  camera,  and  reports  the 
images  thrown  upon  it  through  the  lens,  with  all  the  colors 
we  know. 

The  evolution  goes  from  a  fixed  rudimentary  lens  to  a 
developed  lens — up  to  fixed  eyes  of  many  lenses,  as  in  the 
fly,  or  perhaps  by  a  different  route  to  the  moving  eye  with 
a  single  lens. 

Eyes  appear  early  in  various  parts  of  the  body, — on  the 
back,  belly,  sides,  legs,  even  the  tail ;  and  in  special  prolonga- 


24:  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

tions  that  can  be  moved  in  various  directions,  as  if  we  had 
eyes  in  our  hands. 

In  the  human  embryo,  the  first  trace  of  the  eye  is  a  line 
in  the  skin,  which  develops  into  a  fold,  and  thence  by  slow 
stages  up  to  the  eye  as  we  know  it;  and  in  contemporary 
animals  we  find  eyes  all  the  way  from  mere  localized  sensi- 
bility to  light,  up  to  the  optical  instrument  in  the  head 
of  man. 

Before  leaving  the  eye,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  quote, 
with  a  comment  or  two,  a  remarkable  account  of  its  varieties, 
by  Dr.  Edward  A.  Ayers  (Harper's  Magazine,  September, 
1908)  : 

"  The  snake  has  no  use  for  tears,  nor  the  goose  for  parallel 
vision.  The  spider  can  spin  the  warp  and  woof  of  his  destiny 
without  gazing  at  the  stars,  and  the  sand-burrowing  eel  would 
soon  starve  with  sensitive  cornese.  Nature  holds  to  her  excep- 
tionless law  that  the  talent  unused  by  the  sire  shall  be  with- 
held from  the  son.  But  simplicity  has  its  compensations.  If 
the  spider  cannot  bend  his  neckless  head  nor  move  his  socket- 
fixed  eyes,  he  gets  one  for  each  point  of  the  compass,  whereby 
he  can  keep  one  eye  on  his  struggling  menu  fly,  and  as  many 
as  needed  upon  the  straining  halyards  and  guys  of  his  gum 
thread  web.  And  each  eye  is  set  high,  like  a  lantern  on  a 
hill,  so  its  wide  range  of  vision  makes  eye-rolling  useless.  But 
he  can  only  focus  four  or  five  inches,  and  can  be  easily  fooled 
with  an  imitation  fly.  Why  are  his  eyes  so  beautiful — for 
many  are  like  rubies  set  in  gold — if  the  only  creatures  that 
can  see  them  well  have  no  sense  of  beauty  ? 

"  The  rock-clinging  starfish  with  his  penta  rays  jeweled  with 
eyes;  and  the  wood-louse — called  a  millepede — with  twenty- 
eight  eyes,  set  in  rows  of  sevens,  as  if  his  ancestors  had  gath- 
ered maternal  impressions  of  navy-yard  cannon-ball  decora- 
tions; and  the  blood  specialist  leech,  with  ten  little  eyes 
surrounding  his  mouth  to  guard  against  tainted  food;  and 
the  dozen-eyed  silkworm  with  eyes  single  to  spinneret  output 
and  market  quotation  each;  and  the  caterpillar  sticking  his 
nose  into  an  octagon  crowned  yoke  of  eye-gems,  whence  no 
salad  leaf  may  escape  his  view. 

"  A  goose's  eyes  are  larger  than  his  brain.  Man's  eyes  are 
the  best  all  around  yet  evolved,  though  they  can  see  less  than 
the  owl's  in  the  dark;  less  keenly  than  the  eagle's  afar;  change 
focus  less  quickly  than  the  hawk's;  cannot  sweep  clear  the 
cornea  without  briefly  hiding  the  view;  cannot  focus  as  near 
as  the  fish;  nor  glow  back  like  the  cat's  in  the  dark;  they 


'Ch.  II]  Senses  of  Touch  and  Hearing  25 

cannot  see  opposite  points  at  one  time  like  the  chicken's,  nor 
stare  all  day  long  like  the  snake's;  they  cannot  self -gaze  like 
the  snail's,  nor  behold  as  small  creatures  as  can  the  fly." 

Yet  they  can  do  vastly  more  things  than  can  the  eyes  of 
any  creature  who  surpasses  them  in  some  one  capacity. 

The  matured  eye  is  in  itself  a  thing  of  beauty  and  moral 
expression,  and  yet  its  functions  have  been  evolved  from 
reporting  mere  mechanical  contact,  up  to  reporting  everything 
from  the  sun-studded-  night  to  the  dotted  plate  under  the 
microscope — from  the  menace  of  the  storm-cloud  to  the  love 
in  eyes  that  answer. 

While  senses  responding  to  light  and  sound  have  been  de- 
veloping, so  of  course  has  susceptibility  to  contact  with  hard 
bodies  been  developing  into  susceptibility  to  contact  with  soft 
bodies.  Very  primitive  organisms,  without  definite  sense- 
organs  beyond  those  for  mere  contact,  have  been  seen  to  con- 
tract and  expand  at  contact  with  fluid  as  well  as  with  air, 
light,  sound. 

As  the  eye  has  grown  from  mere  reflex  action  from  mechan- 
ical contact,  to  reporting  Nature  and  art,  so  has  the  ear 
from  a  mere  sense  of  vibration,  up  to  that  of  the  songs  of 
the  birds  and  loved  voices  and  the  other  forms  of  what  we 
call  music. 

Organs  of  hearing  have  generally  been  differentiated  from 
the  skin,  but  not  always.  In  some  animals  far  from  the 
surface,  even  inside  a  chitin  shell,  are  strings  which  are 
supposed  to  be  organs  of  hearing,  and  which  are  evolved 
from  muscles.  In  such  positions  these  chorodontal  organs 
could  of  course  only  be  affected  by  vibrations  heavy  enough 
through  water  to  affect  the  solid  body  imbedding  the  organs, 
but  such  organs  have  been  found  in  a  later  stage  associated 
with  tympanous  membranes  which  could  transmit  vibrations 
through  the  air. 

The  Greenland  whale  hears  well  through  the  water,  but 
does  not  appear  to  be  affected  by  sounds  through  the  air.* 

Insects  often  can  hear  only  sounds  of  a  certain  pitch  and 
quality — generally  those  made  by  the  opposite  sex,  as  by  the 

*K.  Sajo,  Scientific  American  Supplement,  April  13,  1809.  (Appar- 
ently quoted  from  "Prometheus"?.) 


26  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

female  mosquito.  So  sounds,  as  well  as  sights  and  smells, 
are  emissaries  of  love. 

But  for  that  matter,  so  can  we  hear  only  "  sounds  of  a 
certain  pitch,"  but  about  ten  octaves  in  all,  and  probably  only 
of  a  certain  "  quality,"  i.e.,  there  are  probably  sounds  of  a 
pitch  we  can  hear,  whose  quality  prevents  our  hearing  them. 

In  insects,  the  ears,  or  what  appear  to  be  such,  are  pretty 
much  anywhere,  but  generally  in  the  antennae,  feet,  and 
abdomen. 

Mark  Twain's  famous  biological  statement  that  clams  will 
lie  perfectly  still  if  you  play  slow  music  to  them,  is  probably 
not  strictly  accurate:  for  many  organisms  not  so  high  have 
visibly  responded  to  sounds. 

The  same  that  is  true  of  the  organs  responding  to  touch, 
temperature,  light,  and  vibrating  air,  is,  mutatis  mutandis, 
true  of  the  organs  of  taste  and  smell. 

The  antennae  serve  also  as  organs  of  smell.  They,  like 
organs  of  taste,  are  naturally  near  the  orifice  receiving  the 
food. 

But  the  reports  of  the  senses  are  not  restricted  to  the 
organs  specially  differentiated  for  each.  Lombroso  (After 
Death — What?,  pp.  2,  3)  gives  the  following  case  from  his 
own  experience,  and  there  are  many  others  well  attested. 

"A  certain  C.  S.,  daughter  of  one  of  the  most  active  and 
intelligent  men  of  all  Italy . . .  had  lost  the  power  of  vision 
with  her  eyes,  as  a  compensation  she  saw  with  the  same 
degree  of  acuteness  (7  in  the  scale  of  Jaeger)  at  the  point 
of  the  nose  and  the  left  lobe  of  the  ear.  In  this  way  she  read 
a  letter  which  had  just  come  to  me  from  the  post-office,  although 
I  had  blindfolded  her  eyes,  and  was  able  to  distinguish  the 
figures  on  a  dynamometer.  Curious,  also,  was  the  new  mimicry 
with  which  she  reacted  to  the  stimuli  brought  to  bear  on  what 
we  will  call  improvised  and  transposed  eyes.  For  instance, 
when  I  approached  a  finger  to  her  ear  or  to  her  nose,  or  made 
as  if  I  were  going  to  touch  it,  or,  better  still,  when  I  caused 
a  ray  of  light  to  flash  upon  it  from  a  distance  with  a  lens, 
were  it  only  for  the  merest  fraction  of  a  second,  she  was 
keenly  sensitive  to  this  and  irritated  by  it.  '  You  want  to 
blind  me ! '  she  cried,  her  face  making  a  sudden  movement  like 
one  who  is  menaced.  Then  with  an  instinctive  simulation 
entirely  new,  as  the  phenomenon  itself  was  new,  she  lifted 
her  forearm  to  protect  the  lobe  of  the  ear  and  the  point  of 
the  nose,  and  remained  thus  for  ten  or  twelve  minutes. 


Ch.  II]  Transferred  Senses  27 

"  Her  sense  of  smell  was  also  transposed ;  for  ammonia  or 
asafctida,  when  thrust  under  her  nose,  did  not  excite  the 
slightest  reaction,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  a  substance  pos- 
sessing the  merest  trace  of  odor,  if  held  under  the  chin,  made 
a  vivid  impression  on  it  and  excited  a  quite  special  simulation 
(mimica).  Thus,  if  the  odor  was  pleasing,  she  smiled,  winked 
her  eyes,  and  breathed  more  rapidly;  if  it  was  distasteful,  she 
quickly  put  her  hands  up  to  that  part  of  the  chin  that  had 
become  the  seat  of  the  sensation  and  rapidly  shook  her  head. 

"  Later  the  sense  of  smell  became  transferred  to  the  back 
of  the  foot;  and  then,  when  any  odor  displeased  her,  she 
would  thrust  her  legs  to  right  and  to  left,  at  the  same  time 
writhing  her  whole  body;  when  an  odor  pleased  her,  she  would 
remain  motionless,  smiling  and  breathing  quickly." 

He  farther  says  (op.  cit.,  5-7) : 

"  As  early  as  1808  Petetin  cited  the  cases  of  eight  cataleptic 
women  in  whom  the  external  senses  had  been  transferred  to 
the  epigastric  region  and  into  the  fingers  of  the  hand  and  the 
toes  of  the  feet  (Electricite  Animale,  Lyons,  1808). 

"  In  1840  Carmagnole,  in  the  Giornale  dell'  Accademia  di 
Medicina,  describes  a  case  quite  analogous  to  ours.  It  con- 
cerned a  girl  fourteen  years  old  " . . .  who  had  "  true  fits  of 
somnambulism  during  which  she  saw  distinctly  with  the  hand, 
selected  ribbons,  identified  colors,  and  read  even  in  the  dark." 

"  Despine  tells  us  of  a  certain  Estella  of  Neuchatel,  eleven 
years  old,  who . . .  was  found  to  have  suffered  transposition  of 
the  sense  of  hearing  to  various  parts  of  the  body, — the  hand, 
the  elbow,  the  shoulder,  and  (during  her  lethargic  crisis)  the 
epigastrium 

"  Frank  (Praxeos  Mediae,  Univ.  Torino.  1821)  publishes 
an  account  of  a  person  named  Baerkmann  in  whom  the  sense 
of  hearing  was  transposed  to  the  epigastrium,  the  frontal  bone, 
or  the  occiput." 

The  literature  abounds  in  such  cases,  but  I  cited  the  first 
I  happened  upon,  and  there  are  hosts  of  illustrations,  as  we 
shall  see  later,  of  cosmic  relations  independent  of  any  senses 
yet  known. 

The  implications  of  these  facts  we  will  touch  upon  later. 

The  evolution  of  the  different  sense  organs  received  another 
interesting  suggestion  and  perhaps  confirmation,  from  the 
experience,  reported  in  the  Revue  Philosophique  in  1887  (and 
by  me  got  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research),  of  a  French  sailor  who  came  home  from  Mada- 
gascar with  hysteria,  sense-paralysis  of  the  left  side,  but  part 
of  his  right  side  so  sensitive  as  to  throw  him  into  attacks 


28  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

of  hysteria.  These  abnormal  conditions  could  be  temporarily 
relieved  by  hypnotism,  and,  despite  some  skepticism  at  the 
time,  appear  to  have  been  ultimately  cured  by  the  magnet. 
The  point  in  his  case  which  is  of  interest  here,  however,  is 
that  under  hypnotization,  the  nerves  of  ordinary  feeling  ap- 
peared to  act  as  nerves  of  special  sense.  When  his  ears  were 
closed,  he  would  repeat  words  spoken  close  to  his  fingers, 
and  with  his  eyes  bandaged,  he  would  sort  various  colored 
wools.  All  this  might  be  accounted  for  by  telepathy  instead 
of  by  interchange  of  nerve  function,  but  how  account  for  his 
picking  out  all  the  blue  wools  in  the  dark  ? 

It  was  once  the  fashion  in  dealing  with  somnambulic 
patients  to  address  the  pit  of  the  stomach  instead  of  the 
ears,  apparently  with  reference  to  the  sympathetic  nervous 
system.  I  don't  know  whether  the  fashion  prevails  yet. 


CHAPTER  III 

SKETCH  OF  HUMAN  EVOLUTION  (Continual) 

The  Soul 

(a)  Sources 

IN  proceeding  to  consider  soul,  I  use  the  term  in  the 
popular  sense,  without  any  reference  to  the  technical  sense 
over  which  the  psychologists  are  constantly  quarreling.  I 
take  the  word  rather  than  mind,  in  order  to  cover  the  emo- 
tions and  the  will,  as  well  as  the  mere  intelligence.  Yet  it 
will  often  be  natural  to  use  the  term  mind  interchangeably. 

In  considering  the  evolution  of  soul,  we  are  met  at  the 
outset  by  the  question :  Is  there  a  primary  something — a  mind- 
potential,  from  which  thought  and  emotion  are  evolved,  just 
as  body  is  evolved  from  force  and  matter? 

At  first  sight  it  seems  easy  to  find  the  raw  material  of 
soul  in  consciousness,  and  to  assume  a  starting-point  for  what 
we  now  know  as  mind,  when  the  matter  in  an  amoeba  con- 
tracts at  a  touch:  for  then  there  must  be  some  sort  of  con- 
sciousness; but  consciousness  is  not  dynamic:  so  how  can  it 
be  the  raw  material  of  thought,  not  to  speak  of  emotion  and 
will  ?  It  is  merely  aware  of  them,  as  it  is  of  sensation. 

Telesio  "  argued  . . .  from  the  human  consciousness  to  the 
feeling  of  [in?]  inorganic  matter."  Somewhere  I  have  seen 
Weismann  credited  with  the  question :  "  Why  should  we  not 
return  to  the  idea  of  matter  endowed  with  soul  ? "  It  is 
probably  as  old  as  the  other  great  guesses.  The  present  aspect 
of  it,  however,  could  not  have  antedated  the  verification  of  the 
old  guess  of  evolution,  and  that  verification  cannot  be  set 
before  Darwin.  Bergson  says  (C.eative  Evolution,  p.  199) : 
"An  incidental  process  must  have  cut  out  matter  and  the 
intellect,  at  the  same  time,  from  a  stuff  that  contained  both." 
For  myself,  long  before  I  knew  the  opinion  as  anybody's  else, 
29 


30  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

I  could  not  imagine  mind  existing  in  Shakespere  without  its 
germs  existing  in  the  star  dust.  And  long  after  I  first  realized 
my  incapacity  to  separate  consciousness  from  the  star  dust,  I 
found  (italics  mine)  in  James's  Psychology  (I,  149) : 

"//  evolution  is  to  work  smoothly,  consciousness  in  some 
shape  must  have  been  present  at  the  very  origin  of  things. 
Accordingly  we  find  that  the  more  clear-sighted  evolutionary 
philosophers  are  beginning  to  posit  it  there.  Each  atom  of 
the  nebula,  they  suppose,  must  have  had  an  aboriginal  atom 
of  consciousness  linked  with  it;  and,  just  as  the  material  atoms 
have  formed  bodies  and  brains  by  massing  themselves  together, 
so  the  mental  atoms,  by  an  analogous  process  of  aggregation, 
have  fused  into  those  larger  consciousnesses  which  we  know 
in  ourselves  and  suppose  to  exist  in  our  fellow-animals.  Some 
such  doctrine  of  atomistic  hylozoism  as  this  is  an  indispensable 
part  of  a  thorough-going  philosophy  of  evolution.  According 
to  it  there  must  be  an  infinite  number  of  degrees  of  conscious- 
ness, following  the  degrees  of  complication  and  aggregation 
of  the  primordial  mind-dust.  To  prove  the  separate  existence 
of  these  degrees  of  consciousness  by  indirect  evidence,  since 
direct  intuition  of  them  is  not  to  be  had,  becomes  therefore 
the  first  duty  of  psychological  evolutionism." 

Mind,  then,  would  appear  to  be  as  much  a  general  element 
of  the  universe  as  Motion  is,  and  not  only  to  enter  the  body, 
as  already  said,  with  each  unit  of  matter,  but  also  in  more 
complex  forms — through  our  perceptive  organs  as  raw  sen- 
sation, and  in  predigested  shape  from  the  memory  of  each 
mind  and  other  minds.  All  this  psychic  material  from  any 
source,  after  it  enters  the  organism  is  modified  into  a  specific 
stream  of  thoughts  and  feelings,  which  we  call  the  mind  or 
soul,  just  as  Motion  (or  Matter,  if  that  is  the  more  convenient 
phrase)  is  modified  into  a  specific  stream  of  molecular  changes 
which  we  call  the  body.  But  however  mind  may  enter  the 
system,  in  passing  through  it  is  modified  into  a  more  complex 
form,  as  thread  is  modified  into  fabric  as  it  passes  through 
the  loom ;  but  thought  is  no  more  made  of  brain-matter  than 
cloth  is  made  of  loom  matter. 

But  if  mind-potential  is  inextricably  associated  with  matter, 
how  can  mind  exist  independently  of  matter — what  becomes 
of  the  idea  of  a  soul  surviving  the  body  in  which  it  was  de- 


Ch.  Ill]    Force  and  Matter  Limited,  Mind  Unlimited       31 

veloped  ?  Mind  is  not  limited  in  place  or  quantity,  as  appar- 
ently matter  is.  With  our  present  knowledge  we  cannot 
imagine  matter  greater  or  less  in  amount  than  earlier  or  later 
forms  of  the  same  matter.  But  we  can  imagine  one  little  flash 
of  thought  pervading  the  psychic  universe. 

If  all  mind  inhered  in  the  star  dust  from  which  our  world 
was  evolved,  no  more  mind  was  in  the  brain  of  Newton  than 
in  any  other  brain  of  the  same  weight,  yet  from  New- 
ton's brain,  mind  spread  over  the  world  and  over  all  suc- 
ceeding time,  while  from  the  other  brain  it  spread  no  far- 
ther than  the  owner's  interlocutors,  and  no  longer  than  his 
life. 

The  fact  seems  to  be  that  mind  outgrows  matter  as  soon  as 
perceptive  organs  are  evolved — that  it  comes  to  be  not  merely 
the  presumed  primitive  mind-potential  associated  with  matter, 
but  more  in  amount  and  complexity,  and  in  some  degree  in- 
dependent. Soon  the  star  dust  mind-potential  becomes  a  rel- 
atively insignificant  portion  of  the  developed  soul,  and  if  the 
soul  is  to  survive  the  body,  apparently  it  can  well  afford  to 
let  the  congeries  of  atoms,  or  whatever  you  call  them,  that 
have  constituted  the  body,  go  their  way  to  dissolution  from 
each  other,  and  carry  with  them  their  negligible  portion  of 
the  original  mind-potential. 

It  is  a  world-old  speculation  regarding  immortality,  that 
after-existence  cannot  be  conceived  without  pre-existence.  I 
never  saw  any  sense  in  the  speculation,  except  as  I  have  indi- 
cated regarding  mind-potential  in  the  star  dust.  But  won't 
that,  up  through  the  life  of  protoplasm  to  that  of  the  imme- 
diate parent  germ,  do  well  enough  for  pre-existence  ?  In  light 
of  this  very  simple  knowledge,  we  cannot  conceive  of  the  soul 
at  all  without  attributing  to  it  a  pre-existence,  and  I  confess 
that  I  cannot  conceive  it  then,  without  going  back  not  only  to 
the  star  dust,  but  to  the  hypothetical  ( if  we  are  not  hypothet- 
ical enough  already)  system  where  the  hypothetical  smash-up 
furnished  the  hypothetical  star  dust;  and  so  back  through  evo- 
lution and  dissolution  "  time  without  end." 

These  ideas  of  course  are  somewnat  vague  and  paradoxical. 
But  they  are  definiteness  itself  compared  with  some  that  we 
will  be  led  into.  How  often  may  I  be  indulged  in  repeating 
the  truism  that  our  ideas  of  the  universe  beyond  the  little  we 


32  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

know  must  always  be  vague  and  paradoxical  ?  But  it  is  only 
by  starting  with  such  ideas  and  reshaping  them  as  we  go  along, 
that  we  come  to  know  more. 

The  idea  that  there  is  cosmic  mind-potential  just  as  there 
is  cosmic  matter  and  cosmic  force,  and  that,  like  them,  it 
flows  into  us,  helping  to  evolve  us,  is  fraught  with  some 
very  important  implications,  and  may  help  us  to  some  in- 
teresting conjectures  regarding  some  mysteries  which  we 
shall  meet  later.  Meanwhile  we  will  consider  a  few  facts 
which  go  to  support  the  idea,  and  will  later  consider  in  its 
light  some  of  the  salient  phenomena  of  the  evolution  of  soul, 
and  see  if  the  idea  is  consistent  with  them. 

The  only  alternative  to  the  theory  that  the  mind  comes 
from  outside,  is  that  it  is  evolved  inside — that,  in  Cabanis' 
celebrated  phrase,  the  brain  secretes  thought,  as  the  liver 
secretes  bile. 

This  famous  analogy,  however,  is  but  a  very  partial  one: 
for  bile  is  limited  and  sensizable  (I  don't  know  whether  that 
word  is  in  the  dictionaries,  but  it's  time  it  were),  while 
thought  is  neither.  And  at  least  the  most  valuable  por- 
tion of  thought  enters  the  brain  as  thought, — thought 
already  evolved  from  sensation,  and  supplied  by  memory 
or  other  minds,  while  bile  does  not  enter  the  liver  as  bile. 
True,  while  thought  generally  enters  the  brain  as  thought, 
it  sometimes,  perhaps  always,  undergoes  modification  there; 
but  it  is  not  modified  into  something  other  than  thought, 
as  in  the  liver  blood  is  modified  into  something  other  than 
blood.  Cabanis'  analogy  is  not  even  good  as  an  analogy:  to 
make  it  so,  the  brain  would  have  to  secrete  thought  from  blood. 
What  it  does  with  the  blood  is  not  to  secrete  or  transform 
thought,  but  merely  to  build  itself  up,  and  send  away  its 
waste. 

Those  who  hold  the  view  that  man  is  "  one  and  indivisible  " 
— that  the  stream  of  thought  is  not  from  outside,  but  is 
secreted  by  the  brain,  only  put  the  question  a  stage  back, 
not  asking  themselves  what  runs  the  brain — not  considering 
that  the  fact  that  man  eats  potatoes  and  exudes  heat,  belongs 
in  this  connection.  In  holding  their  view,  they  are  believers 
in  perpetual  motion. 

The  entire  being,  body  as  well  as  mind,  is  but  a  fleeting 


Ch.  Ill]  The  Stream  of  Consciousness  33 

mass  of  physical  vibrations  and  psychical  experiences,  and 
often  has  been  well  likened  to  a  fountain:  though  it  has 
a  definite  shape,  it  consists  but  of  particles  changing  con- 
stantly and  with  varying  degrees  of  rapidity — those  concerned 
in  respiration,  for  instance,  probably  changing  fastest;  those 
in  arterial  and  venous  circulation,  next ;  and  so  on,  in  lessen- 
ing degree,  until  we  get  to  those  constituting  bone  or  tooth- 
enamel,  which  probably  abide  in  the  body  from  five  to  ten 
years.  At  death  so  much  of  its  energy  as  is  in  the  form 
of  heat,  rapidly  rushes  back  into  the  cosmic  reservoir,  and 
so  much  as  is  in  the  forms  which  we  generalize  as  matter, 
begins  to  return  immediately  but  more  slowly.  Most  mani- 
festations of  the  psychic  stream  also  cease  to  appear,  but  by 
no  means  all.  It  persists  not  only  in  memories  and  influences, 
but  we  shall  see  indications  of  it  difficult  to  attribute  to 
either. 

While  force  and  matter  seem  to  be  limited — constant  in 
amount  throughout  the  universe,  and  before  and  after  their 
service  in  an  individuality  are  in  service  elsewhere,  we  have 
a  good  deal  of  evidence,  the  best  being  very  recent,  that, 
at  worst,  revolutionizes  all  our  previous  experience  of  the 
reach  of  mind;  and,  at  best,  would  indicate  that  even  the 
individual  mind,  not  to  speak  of  mind  in  general,  has  no 
permanent  limits  in  time  or  space. 

One  school  of  philosophers  reason  that  as  force  and  matter, 
through  all  their  variations,  are  both  persistent  and  constant 
in  amount,  so  mind  must  be.  Perhaps  none  of  them  ever 
stated  it  exactly  in  this  form:  the  proposition  may  be  too 
evidently  ludicrous.  But  hosts  of  them  have  stated  it  in 
hosts  of  other  forms,  regardless  of  the  plain  fact  that  mind 
is  increasing  every  day:  not  only  are  there  new  thoughts, 
but  what  thoughts  there  are,  are  being  disseminated  indefi- 
nitely. 

An  orator's  mind  pervades  an  audience,  and  next  morning 
through  the  papers  pervades  his  city  and  country,  and  in  a 
few  hours  more,  through  the  cables,  pervades  the  civilized 
world.  So  far  as  the  orator  said  new  things,  or  old  things 
in  a  new  way,  there  is  that  much  more  mind  in  the  world. 
It  is  not,  as  would  be  the  case  with  matter  or  force,  a  mere 
substitution  of  a  new  form :  for  no  mind  to  speak  of  has 


34  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

disappeared :  virtually  all  that  there  was  before  is  still  stored 
up  in  men's  memories  and  in  libraries ;  and  perhaps  elsewhere, 
as  we  shall  see  later. 

Moreover,  when  matter  takes  any  one  of  its  transitory  and 
limited  forms,  it  arouses  new  ideas  which  are  not  transitory. 
This  is  of  itself  no  argument  against  Cabanis'  assertion 
that  the  brain  secretes  thought,  but  the  men  who  produce 
the  mind-things  that  last,  say  they  don't  come  that  way. 
Probably  Cabanis  himself,  and  each  man  who  independently 
reaches  Cabanis'  conclusion,  would  call  his  apparently  im- 
mortal and  equally  incorrect  phrase,  an  inspiration — some- 
thing breathed  in  from  outside.  This  is,  however,  a  denial 
of  his  own  proposition. 

The  theory  that  psychic  phenomena  are  simply  a  result 
of  nervous  function,  beginning  with  it,  running  parallel  with 
it,  and  ending  with  it,  is  generally  called  parallelism,  but 
parallelism  does  not  prove  beginning  or  ending  together :  for 
the  soul  could  be  entirely  independent  of  the  body,  and  yet 
act  in  exact  correspondence  with  nervous  function,  the  two 
being  like  instruments  in  the  same  orchestra.  Nay,  the  body 
could  even  condition  the  soul  without  the  soul  being  evolved 
from  it,  as  a  pipe  conditions  water  running  through  it;  or 
a  channel  conditions  a  river. 

Total  parallelism  is  at  best  an  assumption.  M.  Bergson  is 
credited  with  being  the  last  St.  George  effectually  to  dispose 
of  it.  Even  on  the  assumption  that  all  mind  does  run  parallel 
with  brain  changes  during  all  the  brain's  life,  as  parts  of  mind 
certainly  do  during  parts  of  carnate  life,  it  is  no  more  proved 
that  they  start  together  and  end  together,  than  the  same  is 
proved  of  a  railroad  and  river  that  somewhere  keep  each  other 
company.  The  question  soon  ends  in  paradox,  as  questions  on 
the  borderland  of  knowledge  always  do:  for  the  germ  of  the 
mind  was  in  parent  and  parent's  parent,  back  at  least  to  pro- 
toplasm, and  probably  to  star  dust  and  beyond. 

Huxley  suggested  the  name  epiphenomenalism.  But  either 
name  might  apply  to  the  opposite  theory,  of  animism, — that 
the  soul  is  independent  of  the  body:  for  if  that  is  true,  it 
is  still  true  that  during  the  limited  period  of  the  brain's 
activity,  there  is  some  approach,  though  apparently  an  irreg- 


Ch.  Ill]  Parallelism  35 

ular  approach,  to  parallelism  or  epiphenomenalism  between 
its  actions  and  those  of  the  soul. 

But  we  shall  meet  later,  serious,  though  not  necessarily 
fatal,  objections  to  believing  that  this  approach  is  constant — 
that  all  operations  of  what  we  call  the  individual  mind  are 
even  accompanied  by  transmutation  of  brain  tissue. 

Moreover,  we  shall  meet  reasons — very  strong  recent 
reasons — for  believing  that  soul  and  body,  though  very  closely 
identified  during  mortal  life,  may  be  so  fundamentally  in- 
dependent of  each  other,  that  when  the  body  stops  work  and 
enters  upon  dissolution,  the  soul  may  "  leave  the  body  "  and 
continue  to  exist  independently,  and  instead  of  suffering  by 
the  disconnection,  be  merely  relieved  of  certain  trammels 
and  limitations,  notably  those  of  time  and  space  and  matter. 

It  looks  a  good  deal  as  if  the  degree  of  parallelism  may 
vary  inversely  as  the  grade  of  the  psychic  process,  because 
(a)  Low  psychic  processes  like  fear  and  anger  use  up  force 
and  tissue  at  a  tremendous  rate.  On  the  other  hand  high 
processes — courage,  joy,  sympathy,  even  artistic  production, 
are  stimulating  and  invigorating.  It  is  true,  however,  that 
even  the  advent  of  a  poem  is  sometimes  attended  by  birth- 
throes.  Lowell  wrote  the1"  Commemoration  Ode"  almost  at 
a  one-night  sitting,  and  he  said  that  it  "  took  the  virtue  out 
of  "  him  fearfully.  But  undue  deprivation  of  sleep  did  that, 
and  if  he  had  had  a  night  of  fear  or  sorrow,  probably  "  the 
virtue  "  would  have  gone  vastly  worse. 

(b)  Take  another  case  which  long  puzzled  me,  until  I 
found  a  provisional  key.    At  a  dinner  well  constituted  socially 
and  gastronomically,  the  brain  and  the  stomach  each  can 
be  doing  its  very  best  without  at  all  interfering  with  the 
other.     We  are  taught  that  either,  to  do  its  best,  needs  all 
the  blood  it  can  get,  yet  here  both  do  their  best  at  once! 
This  makes  it  look  more  and  more  as  if  the  higher  sort  of 
psychical  function  (and  is  it  too  much  to  call  that  normal 
psychical  function?)    involved  very  little  transmutation  of 
brain  matter — as  if  it  were  somehow  largely   independent 
of  brain  function. 

(c)  But  the  main  consideration  is  yet  to  come.     A  man 
can  dream  the  most  tremendous  dreams,  provided  only  they 


36  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

be  happy  ones,  and  awake  in  better  trim  than  if  he  had  not 
dreamed  at  all — not  only  without  the  slightest  indication  of 
fatigue  or  hunger,  but  stimulated  and  invigorated.  This  has 
been  noticed  after  some  of  the  mediumistic  phenomena  that 
would  have  been  expected  to  be  most  exhausting. 

Now  doesn't  all  this  suggest  strong  probabilities  that,  as 
said,  parallelism  or  epiphenomenalism  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing,  vary  inversely  as  what  we  will  call,  until  we  know  more, 
the  dignity  of  the  psychosis — in  other  words,  that  there's 
no  parallelism  at  all,  but  merely  propinquity  only  while  the 
streams  that  started  at  identity  in  the  protoplasm  have  not 
yet  definitely  branched  into  the  physical  and  psychical,  and 
especially  that  after  they  branch,  the  psychical  runs  parallel 
with  the  physical  only  in  so  far  as  the  psychical  does  not 
throw  off  branches  of  higher  thought,  and,  especially,  is  not 
concerned  with  what  we  must  so  far  regard  as  somewhat 
transcendental  psychosis,  as  experienced  in  dreams  and  vari- 
ous extraordinary  dream  states — in  short,  that  the  dream  states 
are  largely  independent  of  the  body — that  even  when  we  lose 
strength  in  bad  dreams  and  nightmares,  it  is  because  of  the 
physical  conditions  which  give  rise  to  the  psychoses,  and  not 
because  of  the  psychoses  themselves  ?  But  there  are  other 
dreams  of  a  happier  and  higher  order,  not  traceable  to  physical 
conditions,  and  apparently  involving  no  waste,  but  rather 
bringing  recuperation. 

Now  here  for  a  page  or  two  back,  I  have  been  asserting 
and  denying  both  monism  and  dualism.  The  possibility — 
the  inevitability — of  so  doing,  seems  to  prove  both  true  rather 
than  both  false.  I  have  the  very  moderate  grace  to  admit 
all  this  to  appear  very  much  like  nonsense.  As  just  said,  we 
never  get  very  far  from  everyday  experience  without  reaching 
the  land  of  paradox:  what  is  generally  called  philosophy  is 
mostly  made  up  of  it ;  and  at  best  consists  of  fumbling.  This 
present  piece  of  fumbling,  however,  seems  to  suggest  a  recon- 
ciliation in  the  greater  including  the  less. 

Now  let  us  fumble  a  little  more  at  the  relations  of  soul 
and  body. 

Get  all  the  mechanics  and  chemistry  that  are  behind  a 


Ch.  Ill]    Differences  between  Thoughts  and  Things  37 

thought,  and  you  haven't  got  the  thought.  A  violinist's 
brain,  the  nerves  leading  to  his  arms  and  fingers,  the  muscles 
moving  them,  his  violin  and  its  bow,  the  vibrations  in  the 
air,  the  vibrations  in  the  ear,  the  transfer  of  them  to  the 
hearer's  brain,  the  changes  in  the  brain :  I've  probably  named 
everything  mechanical  that  takes  place,  and  yet  I  haven't 
even  named  the  music. 

A  big  pile  of  rock,  over  it  a  lot  of  fog  banks,  behind  both 
the  setting  sun;  vibrations  eastward  from  the  whole  affair; 
a  poet's  eyes  receiving  them  and  reporting  them  to  his  brain, 
and  changes  in  his  brain  resulting :  that's  all  of  the  mechan- 
ical :  the  poem  is  no  part  of  them.  The  chasm  between  the 
instrument  and  the  music,  or  the  sunset  and  the  poem,  is 
absolutely  impassable — a  chasm  whose  bottom  never  can  be 
reached  for  crossing. 

Even  if,  as  seems  growing  more  and  more  reasonable  to 
fancy,  the  sunset  is  merely  a  vehicle  for  the  expressions  of 
the  cosmic  mind,  as  a  blush  or  a  smile  are  expressions  of  the 
individual  mind,  the  sunset  is  not  the  poem ;  or  the  violin, 
the  tune;  any  more  than  the  blood  in  the  maiden's  cheek, 
or  the  smile  of  her  mouth,  are  the  joy  in  the  lover's  heart 

But  here  we  are  again  on  the  edge  of  a  swamp  of  paradox, 
as  we  were  when  we  followed  the  track  of  monism  and  dualism 
to  the  limits  of  our  circumscribed  knowledge.  But  for  vari- 
ety, let  us  start  from  the  same  center  on  still  a  third  track. 

A  lot  of  little  lines  and  dots  representing  a  poem,  ether 
waves  from  them  into  an  eye,  transfers  and  changes  in  a 
brain.  The  same  poem  has  reached  its  goal  through  an  en- 
tirely different  set  of  mechanical  vehicles — another  illustration 
of  the  absolute  separateness  of  thoughts  and  things. 

As  does  the  poet,  so  the  composer  of  the  music  puts  down 
a  lot  of  little  prosy  dots  and  lines,  the  violinist  gets  im- 
pressions from  them  into  his  mechanical  eye  and  brain  that 
you  wouldn't  finger  for  something  pretty,  and  passes  them 
along  through  his  mechanical  nerves  and  muscles  to  prosy 
catgut  and  horsehair ;  and  behold !  the  heavenly  music,  and 
into  many  minds  joy  and  inspiration !  And  yet  some  philos- 
ophers would  have  us  believe  that  the  tune  and  the  poem 
are  so  nearly  of  the  nature  of  the  signs  on  paper,  and  the 


38  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

horsehair,  and  the  catgut,  and  the  brain,  that  when  all  these 
are  gone,  the  tune  and  poem  are  gone.  We  know  better, 
not  as  a  speculation  but  as  a  fact.  Mind,  then,  I  for  one 
cannot  help  regarding  as  distinct  from  Matter  and  Force — a 
third  fundamental  element  in  the  constitution  of  man. 

This  apparently  disproportionate  attention  to  the  nature 
of  mind — especially  its  source  in  mind-potential,  may  be 
justified  in  our  later  study  of  some  mysterious  psychical 
phenomena.  Meanwhile  let  us  see  if  the  hypothesis  that 
mind  comes  from  outside  is  supported  by  a  brief  survey 
of  its  evolution. 

(&)  The  Perceptions  and  the  Intellect 

Of  course  in  sketching  a  few  indications  of  the  evolution 
of  the  senses,  I  incidentally  touched  some  of  the  germs 
in  the  evolution  of  mind. 

The  first  reaction  of  organic  life  to  anything  in  the  en- 
vironment, would  appear  to  be  the  first  reaction  between  soul 
and  universe. 

A  primitive  cell's  experiences  consist  in  expanding  to  heat 
and  contracting  to  cold  or  touch,  and,  most  of  the  time,  in 
freedom  from  perceptible  touch  or  change  of  temperature. 
It  has  probably  some  consciousness  of  at  least  the  active 
conditions — the  changes,  and  possibly  "late  in  life"  some 
recognition  of  them  as  having  been  experienced  before.  With- 
out some  sort  of  recognition  of  difference  of  condition,  there 
could  not  be  the  reflex  action  to  touch,  which  we  generally 
regard  as  the  most  primitive  response  of  organism  to  environ- 
ment, or,  as  I  have  chosen  to  phrase  it,  of  soul  to  universe. 
Whether  the  response  be  what  we  would  call  conscious  or 
not,  there  is  some  recognition  of  changed  conditions,  or 
there  could  be  no  response  to  them.  There  is  Force,  in  the 
contraction;  there  is  Matter  transmuted,  as  in  every  physical 
change.  These  have  come  from  outside  to  become  part  of  the 
organism.  We  have  seen  that  probably  there  also  came  with 
them  something  else  that  brought  about  the  reaction,  and  the 
gradations  are  gradual  and  coherent  from  it  to  Newton's  re- 
actions to  the  fall  of  the  apple,  or  Darwin's  to  biological 
phenomena,  or  Spencer's  to  the  phenomena  of  mind  and 


Ch.  Ill]  Evolution  of  Perceptions  39 

society,  or  Rembrandt's  to  lights  and  shadows,  or  Beethoven's 
to  the  bird's  song  and  the  thunder. 

Professor  Whitman  in  Animal  Behavior  said:  "The  pri- 
mary roots  of  instincts  reach  back  to  the  constitutional  prop- 
erties of  protoplasm." 

Professor  Holmes  says  (op.  cit.,  180f.) : 

"  Along  whatever  line  organization  reaches  a  certain  degree 
of  development  intelligence  appears  on  the  scene.  .  .  .  In- 
telligence is  not  an  entirely  new  power  unrelated  to  the 
other  activities  of  organic  life,  but  a  process  growing  out 
of "  [The  present  writer  would  say  accompanying]  "  other 
organic  functions  and  having  the  same  end  as  these  other 
functions;  it  is,  as  Spencer  has  so  well  emphasized,  but  a 
higher  phase  of  those  processes  of  adjustment  and  regulation 
which  make  up  the  life  of  the  animal." 

The  simplest  knowledge  is  of  a  single  fact,  yet  the  first 
consciousness,  whether  it  appears  in  protoplasm  or  higher 
in  the  scale  of  life,  it  seems  necessary  to  think,  is  not  abso- 
lutely simple,  but  must  contain  in  itself  some  sense  of  differ- 
ence from  an  immediately  preceding  state,  and  as  soon  as 
this  sense  of  difference  appears,  an  idea  is  evolved.  When, 
for  instance,  a  change  of  temperature  passes,  it  is  succeeded 
by  a  condition  similar  to  that  which  preceded  it,  and  when 
the  experience  takes  place  in  a  consciousness  sufficiently 
evolved  to  associate  the  two  conditions,  a  second  grade  of 
knowledge  arises — consciousness  of  likeness. 

The  experience,  say  of  heat,  takes  place  in  an  organism 
high  enough  to  recognize  the  antecedent  and  subsequent  con- 
ditions as  similar.  A  general  idea  is  evolved.  Countless 
generations  later  it  gets  a  name — cold;  or  vice  versa,  if  the 
experience  is  of  a  fall  of  temperature,  the  earlier  and  later 
experiences  correspond  to  what  we  give  the  name  of  heat; 
but  the  first  conception  of  either  cold  or  heat  must  be  so 
foggy  that  it  would  probably  not  be  noticed  at  all  among 
the  vastly  clearer  ideas  of  the  vastly  higher  organism  that 
gives  it  a  name. 

The  sun's  heat  is  accompanied  by  light,  and  when  a 
creature  is  evolved  with  some  notion  of  heat,  that  is  inevitably 
soon  followed  by  an  association  with  light;  and  a  new  idea  is 
born.  This  too  must  be  such  a  vague  conception  that  it  would 


40  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

not  be  thought  of  in  our  own  more  mature  experience,  unless 
special  attention  were  directed  to  it;  but  there  it  is  in  the 
primitive  creature — a  general  idea,  faint  and  rudimentary  as 
you  please,  but  a  general  idea,  as  distinct  from  a  specific 
experience.  Imagination  and  the  laboratory  can  both  follow 
these  little  sensations  and  ideas. 

Suppose  a  primitive  nervous  system,  with  two  centers  con- 
nected, one  experiencing  the  difference  which  we  call  rise  of 
temperature,  the  other  experiencing  the  difference  which  we 
call  increase  of  light — some  such  sense  of  it  as  we  feel  with 
our  eyes  shut:  these  senses  of  difference  are  associated  by 
the  nerve-fiber  connecting  the  two  centers  which  feel  them. 
This  makes  possible  some  psychical  change  consequent  upon 
the  simultaneous  experience  of  light  and  heat, — there  arises  in 
that  being  something  that  would  not  have  arisen  but  for 
association  of  heat  and  light — something  different  from  the 
single  association  of  heat  with  heat  or  cold  with  cold,  or 
either  with  the  other — something  perhaps  unnoticed  the  first 
time  it  appears,  but  something  that  in  the  course  of  genera- 
tions is  going  to  lead  the  creature's  evolved  descendant,  when 
it  wants  heat,  to  seek  light,  and  when  it  wants  coolness,  to 
seek  shade.  This  something,  as  has  been  said,  is  not  a  mere 
sensation — it  is  a  coupling  of  sensations,  and  that  coupling 
is  the  germ  of  a  thought — of  a  concept  that  heat  and  light 
are  associated.  From  that  it  is  but  a  step  to  another  con- 
cept— that  heat  and  light  are  not  always  associated;  and 
many,  but  actual,  steps  to  the  concept  that  the  change  of 
condition  meaning  heat,  generally  takes  place  when  there 
is  a  reddish  or  yellowish  round  light  thing  up  above;  and — 
a  step  farther,  that  the  change  meaning  heat  does  not  take 
place  when  the  round  light  thing  up  above  is  whitish.  But 
all  this  involves  the  evolution  and  connection  of  several  nerve 
centers;  and  of  several  more  to  notice  that  the  two  balls 
seldom  appear  in  the  sky  at  the  same  time. 

Thousands,  perhaps  millions,  of  generations  later,  those 
primitive  concepts  have  grown  into  a  generalization,  and  in 
time  words  have  been  found  for  it,  which  mean:  fire  burns. 
It  takes  thousands  of  generations  more  for  fire  to  imply  the 
combination  of  atoms  of  carbon  with  atoms  of  oxygen — and 
indeed  it  means  that  to  comparatively  few  people,  even  yet. 


Ch.  Ill]    Thought  based  on  Likeness  and  Difference          41 

The  first  word,  whatever  it  was,  which  meant  fire  (whatever 
that  then  meant)  came  into  existence  only  by  virtue  of  vastly 
more  nervous  centers  being  evolved,  and  connected  with  the 
first  two  which  had  already  made  possible  some  change  con- 
sequent upon  the  simultaneous  experience  of  light  and  heat. 

Meanwhile,  much  earlier,  and  of  preliminary  necessity, 
arises  a  discrimination  between  good-to-eat  and  not-good- 
to-eat,  and  in  time  is  made  a  distinction  between  likely-to-eat- 
me  and  not-likely-to-eat-me.  The  recognition  of  good-to-eat 
as  distinct  from  not-good-to-eat,  probably  waits  for  the 
evolution  of  some  sense  of  soft  and  hard,  or  even  is  pre- 
ceded by  it  in  the  rejection  of,  say,  a  grain  of  sand  as 
contrasted  with  a  thing  soft  enough  to  assimilate.  But  crea- 
tures are  seen  to  feed  long  before  any  distinction  is  made. 
To  the  earlier  forms,  all  is  grist  that  comes  to  the  mill :  they 
let  the  water  flow  into  the  opening  that  is  the  precursor  of 
the  smiling  mouth,  and  let  it  bring  what  it  will — "  they  eats 
'em  skins  and  all ";  assimilable  matter  is  assimilated,  and  the 
rest  passes  on. 

But  despite  the  complexity  of  high  types,  let  us  keep  well 
in  mind  that  the  elements  of  all  thought  are  sensation,  and 
consciousness  of  likeness  and  difference.  The  combination 
of  these  three  elements,  remembered  in  relation  to  various 
phenomena,  make  up  the  mental  life  of  a  Newton  or  a 
Spencer. 

Thought,  then,  is  simply  the  arrangement  of  items  of 
knowledge  into  classes,  according  to  the  test  of  likeness  or 
difference.  The  most  primitive  thoughts  that  we  have  dealt 
with  put  the  sensation  of  heat  to-day  into  the  class  with 
the  like  sensation  of  yesterday,  and  the  sensation  of  cold  into 
a  different  class.  So  with  the  sensations  of  light  and  dark, 
and  those  of  resistance,  associated  with  floating  bodies  and 
the  shore,  and  comparative  non-resistance  associated  with  the 
water. 

Let  us  farther  illustrate  the  process  of  mind-building,  from 
thoughts  of  a  higher  order. 

A  straight  line  is  the  shortest  distance  between  two  points. 
This  is  but  a  perception  of  unlikeness — all  other  lines  between 
two  points  are  found  to  be  unlike  straight.  The  shortest 


42  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

one,  wherever  we  find  it,  we  class  with  others  like  it,  and 
call  it  straight. 

A  straight  line  is  one  whose  direction  never  varies.  All 
lines  whose  directions  vary  we  find  are  different  from  straight. 
We  classify  accordingly.  Lines  which  are  not  straight  we 
classify  as  zigzag  or  curved.  We  now  recognize  three  kinds 
by  the  differences  of  each  from  the  others,  and  the  likenesses 
of  those  in  each  group  to  each  other. 

Now  for  something  more  subtle:  a  line  has  direction,  but 
no  dimensions.  This  is  a  recognition  of  differences.  As 
soon  as  we  imagine  breadth  or  thickness  of  a  line,  we  recog- 
nize that  we  can  divide  such  breadth  or  thickness,  and  still 
preserve  the  line — that  consequently  breadth  and  thickness 
are  different  from  the  line;  and  we  can  cut  these  different 
things  in  two  endlessly,  and  still  retain  something  which  is 
different  from  the  line :  we  cannot  reach  the  line  until  we 
imagine  the  something  which  differs  from  it  all  split  away. 

Let  us  take  a  little  course  of  thought  less  abstract  than 
our  recent  mathematical  one.  First  recognize  that  the  whole 
material  of  mental  action  consists  of  thoughts  and  things. 
Each  of  these  two  sets,  the  mind  groups  because  of  their 
likeness,  and  separates  the  two  sets  because  of  their  unlike- 
ness.  Then  follow  down  "  things  "  (as  the  simpler  group) 
by  new  recognitions  of  likeness  and  difference  into  animal, 
vegetable,  and  mineral;  then  follow  down  animals,  still  by 
recognitions  of  likeness  and  difference,  into  mammals,  birds, 
reptiles,  fishes,  and  articulates;  then  mammals,  still  by 
recognitions  of  likeness  and  difference,  into  any  of  the  well- 
known  classifications,  and  you  will  recognize  how  the  whole 
vast  department  of  thought  called  Natural  History,  has  grown 
up  by  recognition  of  likeness  and  difference,  from  (if  you  will 
fix  a  provisional  point)  the  early  recognition  by  eater  and 
eaten  of  a  difference  between  them. 

Similarly,  simply  by  classifications  of  likenesses  and 
differences,  you  can  roughly  trace  the  growth  of  any  other 
department  of  knowledge,  or  thought,  or  even  emotion,  from 
mathematics  or  chemistry  up  to  poetry  or  the  most  ethereal 
charms  of  sex. 

Take  a  fair  approximation  to  all  the  material  of  language, 
say  Eoget's  Thesaurus.  You  will  find  but  classified  lists  of 


Ch.  Ill]  Thought  and  Language  43 

words  according  to  their  likenesses,  which  face  opposing  lists 
of  differing  words  which  are  also  classified  according  to  their 
likenesses.  Now  all  these  words  represent  thoughts  and  shades 
of  thought  that  have  been  evolved  by  the  discovery  or  evolu- 
tion of  newer  and  finer  shades  of  likeness  or  difference. 

And  in  fact,  without  going  to  all  this  trouble,  you  might, 
perhaps,  seize  the  gist  of  the  whole  matter  by  reflecting  a 
little  on  the  fact  that  a  definition,  if  a  good  one,  is  very  apt 
to  state  what  a  thing  or  a  thought  is,  and  then  what  it  is  not. 

Now  by  similarly  rejecting  one  thing  as  unlike,  and  accept- 
ing another  as  like,  the  world  has  gradually  built  up  all  its 
thinking.  Some  very  good  illlustrations  are  in  Fiske's  Cosmic 
Philosophy. 

Great  efforts  have  been  made,  even  by  men  among  the 
first  to  declare  that  "  there  are  no  hard-and-fast  lines  in 
Nature,"  to  split  off  mental  evolution  by  a  hard-and-fast 
line  between  man  and  beast. 

Thinkers  have  long  found  it  comfortable  to  call  a  con- 
sciousness of  sensation  a  percept,  and  the  mental  association 
of  two  or  more  percepts,  a  concept.  Some  affect  to  find  the 
hard  and  fast  line  in  concepts,  declaring  that  there  is  no  con- 
cept that  is  not  embodied  in  a  word,  and  that  as  beasts  have 
no  words,  they  can  have  no  concepts.  Some  try  to  draw  the 
line  at  instincts. 

All  the  time  I  care  to  spend  over  these  discussions  is  to 
state  their  existence,  and  to  state  that  many  beasts  have 
concepts  and  have  words  too,  and  to  depend  for  readers  upon 
people  that  recognize  that  they  have.  The  concepts  of  the 
creatures  below  man  are  rudimentary,  and  so  is  their  lan- 
guage. But  if  they  do  not  possess  both  concepts  and  language, 
such  as  they  are,  and  with  them  arts  and  sciences  and  even 
philosophies,  such  as  they  are,  evolution  covers  less  ground 
and  covers  it  in  a  more  halting  way,  and  is,  on  the  whole, 
a  cheaper  conception,  than  it  appears  to  me.  There  are 
minds  fond  of  trying  to  discover  where  things  start.  Ap- 
parently wider  minds  go  beyond  any  conception  that  they 
started  at  all,  and  hold  that  any  point  for  beginning  their 
treatment  is,  like  all  classifications,  merely  a  question  of  con- 
venience, and  often  a  very  difficult  and  profound  one. 


44  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

(c)  The  Emotions  and  the  Will 

The  evolution  of  the  emotions  is  inextricably  contempo- 
raneous with  that  of  the  perceptions  and  the  intelligence, 
and  necessarily  has  been  somewhat  anticipated  in  what  has 
already  been  said. 

For  purposes  of  discussion,  the  best  point  to  assume  for 
their  start  is  probably,  as  with  the  thoughts,  the  first  reaction. 
As  all  mind  is  built  up  of  simple  recognitions  of  likeness 
and  difference,  so  all  emotion  is  built  up  of  likes  and  dislikes. 
The  complexities  of  both  are  merely  the  complexities  of  their 
objects. 

Probably  amoebae  hate  being  poked  or  chilled,  as  wiser 
people  do,  only  in  greater  degree.  A  time  comes  when  the 
sensation  of  contact  with  a  smooth  surface  turns  into  the 
very  different  sense  of  contact  with  a  needle's  point — where 
mere  sense  of  contact  expands  into  sense  of  pain;  and  a  time 
comes  where  sense  of  contact  also  expands  into  sense  of 
pleasure. 

With  the  earliest  sensations  of  touch  or  density  or  temper- 
ature or  light,  must  come  feelings  of  like  or  dislike:  for, 
as  easily  tested  in  the  laboratory,  very  early  creatures  show 
their  preferences  between  heat  and  cold,  and  light  and  dark- 
ness, and  even  between  different-colored  lights.  Light  and 
heat  and  good-to-eat  have  a  common  quality  which  is  felt 
many  generations  before  it  gets  the  name  agreeable,  and  the 
converse  is  true  of  dark  and  cold  and  inedible.  In  time, 
to  the  good-to-eat  class  is  added  the  quality  sapid  and  other 
details  constituting  good-to-eat ;  and  if  the  creature  during 
this  "thinking"  had  language,  he  would  be  capable  of  a 
remark  quite  up  to  the  intellectual  small-change  of  ball-rooms, 
in :  /  float  into  pleasant  bright  warm  places  and  find  there  soft 
things  good  to  eat. 

These  emotions  of  like  and  dislike,  this  sense  of  agreeable 
and  disagreeable,  are  the  germs  of  confidence  and  fear,  love 
and  hate,  worship  and  exorcism,  praying  and  cursing — of  the 
emotions  of  Job,  Cleopatra,  Paracelsus,  and  Hildebrand. 

Just  where,  in  the  ascending  scale  of  being,  inclination, 
disinclination,  purpose,  come  in,  cannot  be  determined.  The 
lowest  creatures  give  evidence  of  hardly  anything  more  than 


Ch.  IIIJ  Likes  and  Dislikes  45 

such  reactions  as  take  place  in  inorganic  matter.  The  worm 
and  the  mosquito,  however,  seem  to  have  something  like  a 
definite  idea  where  they  are  going,  and  what  they  are  going 
for.  Professor  Holmes  makes  a  very  just  remark  to  the 
effect  that  though  a  contact  reaction  by  an  amoeba's  pseudopod 
differs  very  materially  from  one  by  the  heels  of  a  mule,  the 
two  have  an  element  in  common.  That  element  is  self-de- 
termination, proverbially  prominent  in  the  mule,  but  only  a 
foreshadowing  in  the  amoeba.  But  even  there,  it  is  interesting 
in  many  ways.  It  is  the  germ  of  an  independent  soul.  As 
we  have  said,  the  body's  production  and  nutrition  are  largely 
independent  of  any  symptom  of  its  volition — are  largely  de- 
pendent on  "  God,"  meaning  by  that  venerable  term  at  least 
all  the  power  we  know  which  is  not  subject  to  animal  volition 
— even  to  the  extent  Kipling  goes  in  "  McAndrews's  Hymn." 
But  the  contraction  and  restoration  of  the  protoplasm,  while 
we  call  it  involuntary,  nevertheless  has  an  element  out  of 
proportion  to  any  outside  force,  and  with  a  germ  of  inde- 
pendence which  later  evolves  into  self-control  or  voluntary 
action.  It  is  individual — betokens  an  individuality,  and  lies 
away  back  of  Descartes'  "  Cogito,  ergo  sum." 

With  like  and  dislike,  comes  in  preference ;  and  with  prefer- 
ence, will,  purpose,  and  behavior.  Distinct  purpose  seems  to 
come  in  later  than  the  amceba  and  protozoa  generally.  The 
restless  wandering  about  of  the  earliest  forms  capable  of  real 
activity  serves  to  throw  them  in  the  way  of  whatever  food 
is  within  reach,  but  it  is  apparently  unconscious. 

Professor  Holmes  says,  however  (op.  cit.f  pp.  64-65) : 

"  Instinct,  memory,  fear,  and  a  certain  degree  of  intelligence 
are  among  the  psychic  endowments  with  which  Binet  credits 
the  protozoa.  A  good  sample  of  his  interpretation  of  protozoan 
behavior  is  the  following :  '  The  Bodo  caudatus  is  a  voracious 
Flagellate  possessed  of  extraordinary  audacity;  it  combines  in 
troops  to  attack  animalcule  one  hundred  times  as  large  as 
itself,  as  the  Colpods,  for  instance,  which  are  veritable  giants 
when  placed  alongside  of  the  Bodo.  Like  a  horse  attacked  by 
a  pack  of  wolves,  the  Colpod  is  soon  rendered  powerless; 
twenty,  thirty,  forty  Bodos  throw  themselves  upon  him,  eviscer- 
ate and  devour  him  completely  (Stein). 

" '  All  these  faots  are  of  primary  importance  and  interest, 
but  it  is  plain  that  their  interpretation  presents  difficulties. 


46  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

It  may  be  asked  whether  the  Bodos  combine  designedly  in 
groups  of  ten  or  twenty,  understanding  that  they  are  more 
powerful  when  united  than  when  divided.  But  it  is  more 
probable  that  voluntary  combinations  for  purposes  of  attack 
do  not  take  place  among  these  organisms;  that  would  be  to 
grant  them  a  high  mental  capacity.  We  may  more  readily 
admit  that  the  meeting  of  a  number  of  Bodos  happens  by 
chance;  when  one  of  them  begins  an  attack  upon  a  Colpod, 
the  other  animalcule  lurking  in  the  vicinity  dash  into  the 
combat  to  profit  by  a  favorable  opportunity.' 

"  More  recent  investigations  have  shown  that  the  behavior 
of  protozoa  gives  no  evidence  of  the  high  psychic  development 
assumed  by  Binet.  There  has  been  a  strong  tendency  on  the 
part  of  certain  investigators  to  explain  the  behavior  of  these 
low  forms  as  due  in  large  measure  to  comparatively  simple 
physical  and  chemical  factors.  Others  contend  that  the  phe- 
nomena are  much  more  complex  and  at  present  defy  analysis 
into  physical  and  chemical  processes,  while  a  few  go  further 
and  maintain  that  we  must  assume  some  super-physical  agency, 
a  vital  principle,  or  entelechy  of  some  sort,  to  explain  the 
results." 

Let  us  now  look  at  some  of  the  indications  of  the  dawn 
of  other  qualities,  and  I  will  venture  on  some  suggestions 
more  serious  than  at  first  they  may  seem,  of  the  lines  of 
evolution  they  point  to. 

As  we  search  the  examples  which  Professor  Holmes  has 
collected,  we  seem  to  get  within  sight  of  the  first  prodigal, 
the  first  conservative,  the  first  radical,  the  first  coquette,  and 
the  first  of  many  other  types. 

The  first  prodigal  perhaps  we  find  in  Nereis,  who  loves 
narrow  places,  and  to  whom  sunlight  is  death.  Yet  give 
him  some  nice  little  glass  tubes  in  sunlight,  and  he  will 
crawl  into  them  and  stay  there  and  die  for  it.  Earwigs  are 
very  similarly  constituted :  they  don't  thrive  in  light,  and  do 
like  crevices — so  much  that  they  will  leave  an  open  space 
in  shadow,  and  crawl  under  a  glass  plate,  though  it  exposes 
them  to  full  light. 

And  where  does  fear  begin?  In  creatures  who  similarly 
early  avoid  everything  new  ?  Are  these  the  first  conservatives  ? 
Or  are  they  the  first  of  the  skeptics  ?  Probably  both :  it's  not 
inconceivable  that  long  ago  some  amoeba  split  into  parts, 
one  of  which  was  the  ancestor  of  lions  and  the  other  of 
lambs.  That  is:  it  would  not  be  inconceivable  if  the  cross 


Ch.  Ill]  Primitive  Conduct  47 

pairing  on  the  way  down  did  not  make  so  many  remote  beings, 
ancestors  of  each  present  being. 

Where  does  the  monkey's  (and  our)  imitativeness  begin? 
Soon  after  creatures  show  any  reaction  to  light,  some  are 
apt  to  follow,  so  far  as  they  can,  objects  or  shadows  which 
cross  their  range  of  vision. 

Eughna  viridis  has  a  red  eye  spot,  but  not  at  the  end  that 
goes  first.  It  seeks  soft  light  and  follows  it,  but  avoids  strong 
light.  Many  protozoa  show  the  same  reaction,  and  others  its 
reverse.  Perhaps  coquettishness  starts  in  some  of  those  which 
(or  who?)  love  the  light  but  swim  toward  it  backwards. 
Higher  organisms — larval  lobsters  for  instance,  do  the  same 
thing.  Fiddler  crabs  take  it  perhaps  more  coquettishly  still — 
sideways. 

Among  the  amoebae  we  find  a  suggestion  of  the  first  drama. 
Holmes  says  (op.  cit.t  p.  69)  : 

"  Amoeba,  like  higher  animals,  may  follow  its  food.  Jennings 
describes  an  Amoeba  attempting  to  engulf  a  spherical  cyst  of 
Euglena.  As  the  Amoeba  came  in  contact  with  it  the  cyst 
rolled  away;  the  Amoeba  followed;  the  cyst  continued  to  be 
pushed  ahead,  now  one  way  and  now  another,  and  the  Amoeba 
changed  its  course  accordingly.  After  the  cyst  had  been 
rolled  against  an  obstacle  and  the  Amoeba  was  about  to  suc- 
ceed in  capturing  it,  a  large  infusorian  appeared  on  the  scene 
and  swept  it  away." 

When  we  come  to  the  question  of  the  origin  of  Ethics, 
we  find  the  biologists  constantly  speaking  of  the  "be- 
havior "  of  primitive  organisms.  The  word  implies  standards 
of  conduct,  and  where  there's  a  standard  of  conduct,  there's 
ethics,  though  the  standard  may  be  no  higher  than  "what  is 
usual " ;  and  in  that  sense,  the  physicists  and  chemists  and 
geologists  apply  the  word  "  behavior "  to  inanimate  matter. 
But  is  not  "  the  usual  thing  "  also  a  standard — too  much  of 
a  standard,  in  high  society? 

The  right  search  for  happiness,  and  avoidance  of  unhappi- 
ness,  are  the  fundamental  causes  of  development;  and  the 
wrong  searches,  of  destruction.  Ethics  begin  in  self-preserva- 
tion: that's  a  duty:  and  many  steps  up  in  insects,  we  see 
the  start  of  altruism,  in  helping  the  preservation  of  others — 


48  Sketch  of  Human  Evolution  [Bk.  I 

helping   each    other   out   of   scrapes,    and   co-operation   in 
various  enterprises. 

Nobody  can  draw  a  line  between  the  self-conserving  re- 
flexes of  the  most  primitive  creatures,  and  the  poet's  fine 
frenzy  or  the  policies  of  popes  and  emperors.  The  genealogy 
of  Napoleon  has  not  been  traced  back  to  the  myriad  drops 
of  protoplasm  which  marked  one  stage  of  his  evolution,  and 
still  less  has  it  to  the  transition  from  inorganic  matter  to 
organic  matter  which  probably  was  a  stage  in  the  evolution 
of  the  protoplasm.  But  beginning  with  the  drops  of  mercury 
and  chloroform  that  we  considered  in  Chapter  II,  a  set  of 
specimens  from  them  to  Napoleon  could  be  arranged  with 
much  more  gradual  differences  than  those  in  Marsh's  line, 
in  the  Yale  Museum,  of  horses,  from  the  little  five-toe  up 
to  Dexter,  or  in  his  famous  "  infant  class "  from  monkey 
to  man.  Of  course  with  our  present  knowledge,  there  would 
not  be  a  strict  hereditary  line  along  the  series,  but  the  series 
could  be  made  to  look  as  if  there  were;  and  as  knowledge 
advances,  an  actual  line  can  be  more  and  more  approxi- 
mated. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  dwell  a  moment  on  the  evolution 
most  involving  emotions  and  ethics — that  of  sex.  It  be- 
gan, as  it  persists,  in  division  of  the  personality.  The  cell 
of  amosba  gradually  divides  itself  into  two;  and  the  latest 
great  romancer  makes  his  hero,  the  morning  after  his  union 
with  his  beloved,  ask  himself :  "  Am  I  two  ?  "  Through  all 
evolution,  the  mere  physical  reproduction  has  consisted  of 
the  parent  organism  giving  up  part  of  itself;  and  when  the 
emotional  stage  becomes  pronounced,  the  male  and  the  female 
begin  to  give  up,  not  only  their  tissue,  but  their  rest  and 
comfort,  for  each  other  and  for  the  child.  The  evolution 
of  monogamy  seems,  in  a  rough  way,  to  accompany  the 
evolution  of  beauty,  intelligence,  and  character:  among  the 
leaders  in  these  respects,  in  the  lower  creatures,  as  well  as 
in  mankind,  monogamy  is  most  frequently  found ;  the  most 
noticeable  instances  being  the  birds  generally,  in  their  pairing 
season,  and  the  swans  for  life;  and  the  lions  till  the  cubs 
are  reared,  and  in  some  instances,  it  is  believed,  longer. 

With  the  ants  and  the  bees,  the  overgrown  intelligence 


Ch.  Ill]  Monogamy  a  Test  of  Progress  49 

seems  to  have  shut  love  out  of  the  general  experience,  and 
evolved  polyandry  with  a  vengeance. 

With  mankind,  the  prevalence  of  monogamy  is  the  most 
distinct  test  of  progress,  not  only  as  a  characteristic  of  na- 
tions, but  even  of  social  sets.  At  the  two  extremes  of  life, 
among  those  debased  by  low  nutrition  and  impoverished  sen- 
sation, and  among  those  at  the  other  extreme,  debased  by 
excess  of  nutrition  and  sensation,  monogamy  languishes. 
Where  bodies  are  healthiest,  sensations  and  habits  nearest 
normal,  intelligence  broadest,  morals  highest,  and  sensibilities 
keenest  and  most  catholic,  love  in  its  whole  blessed  range, 
from  parents  to  each  other  and  to  offspring,  is  deepest  and 
most  enduring;  there  monogamy  has  been  the  chief  cause  of 
the  peculiar  evolution,  and  is  itself  most  thoroughly  evolved ; 
and  the  family,  as  the  foundation  for  the  development  of  the 
individual  and  the  state,  is  nearest  intact.  This  development 
simply  means  the  enlargement  of  the  Cosmic  Relations. 

Thus  we  have  marked  a  few  of  the  steps  from  the  lowest 
manifestations  to  the  highest,  of  the  soul  which  reacts  with 
the  universe.  Now  let  us  turn  our  taper  light  upon  a  few 
fragmentary  aspects  nearest  related  to  our  purpose,  of  the 
universe. 


CHAPTER  IV 
EVOLUTION  OP  THE  UNIVERSE 

As  comprehensive  a  word  as  universe  is  sure  to  be  used 
in  many  senses.  When  I  write  here  of  the  evolution  of  the 
universe,  I  do  not  mean  the  cosmogony — the  process  that 
we  generally  assume  to  have  begun  when  our  bunch  of 
the  star  dust  began  gravitating  toward  centers,  and  which 
has  prepared  the  apparatus  through  which  the  Cause  now 
manifests  the  objective  half  of  the  phenomena  appreciable 
to-day.  I  mean  the  evolution  of  the  soul's  knowledge  of 
these  phenomena.  Here  again  classification  is  arbitrary.  The 
senses,  intellect,  and  emotions  all  three  respond  to,  and  work 
upon,  vibrations  flowing  in  from  an  outside  something.  In 
this  relation,  it  is  really  not  the  outside  something,  but  the 
vibrations  flowing  from  it,  that  the  soul  works  upon;  and 
in  this  sense,  the  sensations  are  the  Universe;  and  it  is  this 
mass  of  sensations  (and  the  memory  of  them),  that,  for  the 
purposes  of  this  treatise,  I  mean  by  the  universe. 

As  a  plain  matter  of  fact,  what  have  we  in  mind  as 
universe,  when  we  speak  of  the  interactions  between  the  soul 
and  the  universe?  Obviously  that  portion  of  the  totality  of 
things  with  which  the  soul  interacts.  Each  soul  then  has 
its  own  universe,  which  is  plainly  that  soul's  portion  of  a 
greater  universe;  but  souls  of  the  same  general  development 
have  much  in  common,  and,  roughly  speaking,  the  knowledge 
of  phenomena,  and  deductions  from  them,  which  are  held 
in  common  by  civilized  people,  is  what  is  generally  meant 
by  the  term  "The  Universe." 

But  probably  the  soul  reacts  with  more  of  the  universe 
than  it  is  aware  of.  This,  however,  need  not  affect  our 
reasonings :  they  will,  except  by  acknowledged  inference,  re- 
late only  to  what  we  know,  though  it  is  obvious  that  if  they 
do  that  with  fair  success,  they  will  probably  be  correct 
regarding  the  uncertain  fringe  on  the  outer  edge  of  what 
we  know. 

50 


Ch.  IV]    Each  Consciousness  has  its  own  Universe  51 

I  don't  propose  to  go  into  the  evolution  or  the  working 
laws  of  the  objective  universe.  For  those,  read  Spencer. 
The  "  universal "  phenomena  that  have  been  discovered  since 
he  wrote — the  wider  range  of  wave  motion  and  radiation, 
follow  the  "  universal "  laws  that  he  indicated,  and  no  genius 
has  shown  us  any  new  ones  since. 

And  I  shall  speculate  very  little  regarding  the  universe 
in  the  sense  of  the  totality  of  things.  What  I  have  read 
of  such  speculations  has  been  mainly  nonsense  made  up  of 
words  which  are  mere  confessions  of  ignorance,  and  much 
of  this  nonsense  has  come  from  misdirected  efforts  of  abler 
minds  than  mine.  I  only  want  to  call  attention  to  some 
of  the  Cosmic  Relations  between  universe  as  we  know  it, 
whatever  its  laws,  and  soul  as  we  know  it. 

Plainly,  as  already  hinted,  the  objective  universe  is  not 
the  same  to  any  two  people — or  any  two  organisms.  Each 
organism  has  its  own.  The  arnu-ba  has  its,  and  Humboldt 
has  his,  and  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  outside 
of  the  one  that  anybody  has,  or  those  that  everybody  has, 
is  still  left  more  universe  than  our  imaginations  can  in  any 
way  compass.  Its  spaces  range  beyond  our  telescopes,  and 
even  the  qualities  of  the  little  space  we  thoughtlessly  claim 
to  know,  range  far  beyond  our  microscopes  and  our  specu- 
lations. 

The  dimensions  and  other  characteristics  of  each  creature's 
universe,  are  of  course  determined  primarily  by  the  sense 
organs,  and  secondarily  by  the  nervous  structures  which 
register,  accumulate,  and  compare  the  impressions  received 
by  the  organs.  At  one  end  of  our  living  world  is  a  universe 
of  only  a  few  elements,  or  rather  the  difference  between 
degrees  of  one  element,— of  resistance  and  non-resistance, 
or  of  penetrability  and  impenetrability — of  water  that  the 
creature  can  float  through,  or  of  earth  or  log  that  it  cannot : 
or  possibly  the  difference  is  one  of  heat  and  cold — water  that 
is  warm,  or  water  that  is  cold;  or  of  light  and  dark — places 
that  have  a  glow,  or  places  that  have  not.  At  the  other  end 
are  the  universes  of  Newton,  Humboldt,  Helmholtz,  Michel- 
angelo, and  Shakspere. 

Each  individual's  universe  is  evolved  with  his  mind,  but 


52  Evolution  of  the  Universe  [Bk.  I 

don't  let  that  make  us,  with  some  philosophers,  "  believe " 
that  the  mind  and  the  universe  are  the  same.  More  than  one 
philosopher  is  deemed  to  have  won  a  claim  to  undying  fame 
by  demonstrating  that  there  is  a  universe  external  to  the  mind. 
Anybody  can  find  a  simpler  demonstration  than  theirs,  by 
going  toward  an  open  door  in  the  dark,  with  his  arms  stretched 
out  parallel  to  guard  against  it,  and  so  moving  that  his  arms 
will  pass  on  the  respective  sides  of  the  door,  and  leave  him  to 
strike  it  with  his  face. 

Yet,  despite  such  demonstrations,  this  external  universe 
seems  to  be  losing  its  old  contracted  character  of  "  matter," 
and  becoming  simply  another  mind;  but  there  is  not  much 
question  now,  even  among  those  given  to  that  questioning  of 
obvious  facts  which  they  call  philosophy,  that  it  has  an 
existence  outside  of  our  minds. 

We  know  it  only  by  its  phenomena,  and  they  are  constantly 
in  both  our  minds  and  the  something  external.  A  phenomenon 
results  only  from  an  interaction  between  an  object  and  a 
perceiving  subject.  We  will  find  reason  as  we  go  on,  for  get- 
ting as  clear  an  idea  of  this  as  we  can.  I  will  attempt  a 
simple  demonstration. 

A  boy  goes  into  the  pantry  after  a  pie.  There  something 
gives  him  a  sight-sensation  of  a  round  flat  object,  and  an 
odor-sensation  of  an  agreeable  something  proceeding  from 
the  object.  If  he  pursues  his  investigation  farther,  he  gets 
sensations  of  touch,  of  sound,  as  he  cuts  or  breaks  the  pie, 
and  then  happily  of  taste.  All  he  knows  of  the  pie  is  these 
sensations.  They  constitute  the  complex  phenomenon — pie. 
They  are,  so  far  as  concerns  him  (or  us),  the  pie,  and  without 
them,  there  would  be,  at  least  for  him  and  us,  no  pie.  Some 
philosophers  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  would  be  no  pie 
at  all — that  the  pie  exists  only  when,  and  as,  somebody  ex- 
periences these  sensations.  If  they  are  right,  the  conclusion 
is  a  saddening  one  for  the  boy:  for  if  he  went  away  leaving 
half  of  the  pie,  there  could  be  no  half  for  him  to  come  back 
to.  The  truth  is  that  while  he  is  away,  there  do  not  remain 
in  the  pantry  any  of  the  sensations  which  we  call  pie,  but 
something  remains  which,  when  he  comes  back,  can  again 
arouse  the  sensations  we  agreed  to  call  pie;  and  the  happy 


Ch.  IV]  Realism  and  Idealism  53 

fact  that  that  something  remains,  proves  that  there  is  a 
universe  outside  of  the  mind. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  a  log  of  wood  be  shoved  into  the 
room,  but  no  boy,  there  are  still  in  the  room  none  of  the 
sensations  which  we  agree  to  call  pie.  To  arouse  those  sen- 
sations, the  bit  of  the  objective  universe  still  there  must  be 
visited  by  a  bit  of  the  subjective  universe.  The  boy  comes 
in  with  that  bit  of  the  subjective  universe  eagerly  acting  in 
his  brain  and  on  his  salivary  glands,  and  again  are  created 
the  sensations  we  call  pie. 

The  bearing  of  this  disquisition  on  pie  (a  subject  for  which 
I  have  an  Emersonian  fondness)  upon  the  wider  questions  of 
our  Cosmic  Relations,  will  be  more  obvious  as  your  patience 
holds  out 

I  shall  never  forget  my  feeling  when  the  extreme  idealistic 
theory  was  first  presented  to  me.  As  a  boy  I  had  just  re- 
turned from  my  first  trip  to  the  Adirondacks.  Probably 
not  three  hundred  people  a  year  went  into  those  mountains 
then,  and  probably  not  three  hundred  lived  in  them.  The 
impressions  left  in  my  mind  were  nearly  all  of  glorious 
solitudes  where  I  had  been  alone  watching  the  runways  of 
the  deer.  The  memory  of  those  solitudes,  and  the  hope  of 
being  again  amid  them,  were  very  precious  to  me.  When 
I  first  was  indoctrinated  with  the  theory  that  the  external 
universe  has  no  existence  except  as  seen  by  an  intelligent 
mind,  I  said  to  myself:  As,  then,  no  one  sees  those  lakes 
and  mountains  now,  they  no  longer  exist — they  are  not  there. 
The  feeling  was  horrible.  Even  under  the  happy  inspirations 
the  lakes  and  mountains  had  brought,  there  always  had  been 
a  heavy  oppressive  undertone  of  loneliness,  which  the  rec- 
ollection of  them  revived;  and  it  had  not  been  free  from 
some  of  the  sense  of  terror  of  the  supernatural  fostered  in 
those  superstitious  days.  But  this  suggestion  that  those 
beautiful  yet  awful  solitudes  had  disappeared  when  we  dis- 
appeared, had  in  it  something  more  eerie  and  terrible  than 
could  come  to  a  boy  from  the  cry  of  loon  or  owl  or  panther, 
or  even  from  the  silence  and  the  loneliness  that,  in  occa- 
sional moments  of  perverse  imaginings,  became  more  dreadful 
still. 

Against  the  unholy  magic  suggested  by  the  doctrine,  the 


54  Evolution  of  the  Universe  [Bk.  I 

boy's  reason  made  little  headway,  and  the  philosophic  diffi- 
culty did  not  take  its  place  among  clearly  settled  things 
until,  to  the  old  man  musing  on  the  boy's  perplexities,  came 
the  suggestion  of  the  pie,  which,  very  wrongly,  seems  not 
to  have  occupied  as  large  a  space  in  the  boy's  horizon  as 
the  Adirondacks  did. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  KNOWN  UNIVERSE  AND  THE  UNKNOWN  UNIVERSE 

THE  Adirondacks  existed  after  I  left  them,  and  before  I 
saw  them :  so  the  whole  universe  visible  to  us  must  have  ex- 
isted essentially  the  same  as  now,  though  different  in  some 
details,  before  there  was  an  eye  to  see  it ;  and  it  has  been  slowly, 
slowly  revealing  itself  to  us  as  eyes  have  been  evolved,  and 
seems  to  have  been  evolving  eyes  for  that  express  purpose. 

Let  us  imagine  ourselves  living  in  darkness  relieved  at 
times  by  just  enough  suggestion  of  light  to  make  the  darkness 
more  visible,  with  no  more  sense  of  sound  than  an  occasional 
vibration  somewhere  in  our  interior  economy;  about  the 
same  satisfaction  from  food  and  drink  as  has  the  patient 
who  is  nourished  by  anointing  his  surface  with  an  odorless 
oil,  and  with  no  sensations  beyond  these,  except  a  faint  con- 
sciousness of  contact  with  objects,  and  support  from  earth 
or  water.  Such  experiences  constituted  the  universe  of  most 
of  our  ancestors,  and  still  constitute  that  of  most  of  our 
contemporaries. 

Next  assume  a  distinct  sense  of  shadow  between  the  rudi- 
mentary eye  and  the  source  of  light.  What  an  immense 
resource  this  is — in  seeking  food  and  avoiding  danger,  not 
to  speak  of  variety  of  life  and  of  pleasure,  as  compared  with 
the  creature  who  has  only  the  sense  of  touch!  How  im- 
mensely larger  and  more  interesting  is  the  universe  of  the 
later  creature!  To  get  some  realization  of  this,  recall  even 
your  own  feeling  at  some  time  over  the  mere  simple  ex- 
perience of  light  after  darkness,  and  yet  you  have  so  many 
more  complex  feelings,  that  this  one  appears  by  contrast 
insignificant. 

Very  early  comes  in  a  sense  of  different  kinds  of  light — 
of  color.  Think  of  the  contrast  between  engravings  and  oil- 
paintings.  Imagine  the  landscape  of  the  moon-lit  night 
shifting  to  that  of  noon.  But  even  in  the  senses  of  sight 
55 


56  The  Known  Universe  and  the  Unknown       [Bk.  I 

alone,  not  to  speak  of  other  senses,  this  is  but  the  beginning. 
With  each  sense  evolved,  a  new  universe  is  known. 

And  now,  for  contrast  (for  which,  through  all  my  tedious 
exposition  I  have  had  a  motive  that  will  appear  later),  let  us 
jump  to  the  universe  of  to-day  as  I  see  it  at  this  moment. 

As  I  look  North,  between  the  beautiful  pillars  of  a  Doric 
summer-house,  two  immense  pines,  light  green  with  dark 
shadows,  are  in  the  panel  at  the  left,  soughing  in  the  summer 
breeze.  A  mass  of  lower  foliage  is  this  side  of  them,  con- 
spicuously a  great  round  laburnum,  above  and  beyond  which 
a  narrow  sharp  arbor-vitas  shoots  up,  in  lighter  green  against 
the  darker  pines.  Above  all,  blue  sky  with  white  clouds.  I 
would  like  to  have  it  all  painted.  At  the  right  are  two 
more  panels,  of  lawn  and  distant  wood,  with  my  distant  neigh- 
bor's beautiful  buildings  with  their  peaked  turrets,  brownstone 
against  the  green,  and  then  in  another  panel,  where  I  could 
toss  my  pencil,  rises  a  pretty  little  spruce,  on  whose  spire  a 
pretty  little  bird  has  been  chattering  at  me  a  pretty  little  song 
nearly  all  the  time  I  have  been  writing,  and  the  pines  have 
soughed  their  accompaniment.  Then  at  the  left  of  all  I  have 
described,  as  I  now  look  West,  comes  the  massive  square  corner 
pillar  of  the  summer-house,  and  next  it  a  fluted  Doric  column. 
They  shut  out  the  left  edge  of  the  left  pine ;  and  on  their  other 
side  opens  a  picture  of  absolutely  different  character,  whose 
limit  is,  instead  of  a  hundred  feet,  some  sixty  miles.  The 
lower  quarter  of  the  panel  is  foreground — my  hill  sloping 
rapidly  in  light  green  to  where  the  men  with  horses,  bay 
against  the  green,  are  turning  the  pretty  cow-pond  among 
the  trees  into  a  swimming-hole  for  my  young  people — and 
their  mother  and  me;  then,  above  in  the  perspective,  a  field 
of  buckwheat  still  green,  then  one  of  yellow  stubble  from 
the  oats  just  cut.  In  the  perspective,  these  fields  appear  al- 
most wooded  with  small  locusts  along  some  roads,  and  a  few 
great  maples  and  pines;  then  my  woods — so  beautiful,  the 
rolling  light  green  deciduous  trees  making  the  jagged  pines 
shooting  up  here  and  there  in  front  and  above,  look  almost 
black.  Beyond,  over  the  woods,  stretches  the  pearly  surface  of 
Lake  Champlain,  with  long  faint  blue  lines  of  current.  At 
the  right,  just  above  the  trees,  a  low  dark  green  island, 


Ch.  V]    Protozoan  and  Human  Universes  Contrasted        57 

with  a  white  lighthouse  and  keeper's  home,  reaches  across 
about  a  quarter  of  the  picture.  A  little  higher  in  the  per- 
spective, touching  the  left  edge,  is  a  smaller  island.  Beyond, 
far  off,  comes  the  other  side  of  the  lake  in  what  the  fore- 
shortening makes  a  virtually  straight  line  across  the  picture ; 
and  above  it  rise  in  faint  misty  blue,  fold  upon  fold,  miles 
upon  miles  until  we  come  to  rounded  and  peaked  summits, 
the  Adirondacks.  Above  them,  white  clouds  with  bluish  gray 
shadows,  the  upper  edges  broken  with  the  dark  blue  of  a 
clear  sky.  One  more  panel  between  the  pillars,  to  the  left, 
is  a  beautiful  variant  of  the  one  I  have  just  described. 

Where  I  turn  South,  there  rise  from  the  plain  two  of 
those  picturesque  mountains  of  tilted  strata  that  slope  on  one 
side  and  are  precipitous  on  the  other ;  and  as  I  turn  farther 
to  the  East  I  come  to  the  Green  Mountains — first,  the 
beautiful  reposeful  gently-three-peaked  Lincoln;  next,  the 
unsurpassed  gracefulness  of  the  Couching  Lion,  not  the 
biggest  mountain  I  know,  but  the  one  with  the  most  uplift; 
then  after  a  few  lower  summits  to  (though  fast  becoming 
shut-out  by  growing  trees)  Mansfield,  with  an  outline  that 
seems  really  ingeniously  bulky,  sometimes  looks  bigger  than 
the  Jungfrau,  and  yet  in  winter,  in  that  strange  green  twilight 
that  now  and  then  comes  over  the  snow,  makes  one  think 
of  fairies. 

Now  contrast  these  lovely  things  open  to  my  eyes  and  ears, 
with  our  ancestor's  universe  of  darkness  and  silence.  Then 
suppose  that  he  had  varied  the  monotony  of  his  existence  by 
splitting  himself  into  a  family,  and  contrast  his  experience 
of  it  with  mine  if  my  little  daughter  should  happen  to  get 
off  her  pony  and  be  chased  down  here  by  my  six-foot  boys. 

To  emphasize  once  more  the  emotional  contrast  (for  all 
of  the  contrasts,  a  reason  will  appear  presently) :  this  beauti- 
ful universe,  of  which  I  have  tried  to  give  you  some  faint 
notion,  is  mine — mine — mine,  even  the  miles  and  miles  of 
mountains  are  as  much  mine  to  all  significant  intents,  as  if 
I  owned  them  in  fee  simple.  Compare  this  joy  with  the 
protozoon's  right,  title,  and  interest  in  his  puddle.  And  then 
with  all  he  can  do,  compare  my  privilege  of  making  roads  to 
all  this  loveliness,  which  was  not  accessible  before,  and  leav- 
ing my  gate  open  to  all  who  care  to  come. 


58  The  Known  Universe  and  the  Unknown       [Bk.  I 

Then  think  of  the  joy  of  doing,  however  badly,  what  amid 
all  this,  I  am  trying  to  do  with  my  pencil  (among  my  joys 
I  prize  that  of  not  writing  with  a  pen),  which  has  nothing 
in  the  primitive  universe  even  to  contrast  with  it. 

Then  reflect  that  the  scene  before  me  is  but  a  small  part  of 
the  universe  open  to-day — Niagara  and  the  Grand  Canyon 
and  the  Yosemite  and  the  wonderful  Pacific  coast,  and  the 
Canadian  Eockies,  and  the  Alps,  the  Mediterranean,  the 
Himalayas — the  whole  wonderful  world,  and  the  ocean  and 
the  night.  Then  the  great  architecture  and  sculpture  and 
pictures;  beautiful  men  and  women;  the  drama — spoken  and 
danced  and  sung;  and  Liszt's  Preludes  and  the  Pilgerchor 
and  Beethoven's  last  quartets.  Then,  on  the  more  intellectual 
side,  the  great  books,  long  talks  with  great  people,  and  with 
others  who,  like  not  a  few  of  the  great  ones,  are  better 
than  great. 

Keflect  that  beyond  the  joy  of  contemplating  our  universe, 
men  have  had  the  higher  joy  of  creating  no  little  of  it — all 
the  art  and  thought  and  love.  Nature  supplied  the  material 
and  gave  the  hints,  but  the  production  was  our  own. 

So  I  might  go  on  for  many  pages  more,  describing  the 
universe  of  the  modern  man,  and  contrasting  it  with  the 
universe  of  the  primitive  animal;  but  perhaps  I  have  taxed 
your  patience  even  more  than  my  purpose  requires. 

And  now  for  my  purpose  in  trying  to  awaken  some  feeling 
of  the  contrast.  It  is  to  impress  that,  as  our  universe  has  been 
a  gradual  revelation,  up  step  by  step  from  the  protozoon's,  ours 
is  presumably  only  a  part  of  one  as  much  beyond  ours,  as  ours 
is  beyond  the  protozoon's.  The  amphioxus  must  have  vague 
feelings  of  something  beyond  what  it  can  sense;  and  far 
more  certainly  do  we.  As  the  early  creatures  must  have  in 
their  sight,  faint  presages  of  what  we  call  color,  or  in  their 
hearing  faint  presages  of  what  we  call  timbre,  we  certainly 
have  presages  far  wider.  Are  we  not  constantly  feeling  fore- 
tastes of — we  know  not  what,  except  that  it  seems  high  and 
good? 

There  was  certainly  something  prophetic,  though  not  nec- 
essarily prophetic  of  my  personal  experience,  in  the  exaltation 
brought  me  before  sunrise  this  morning  in  the  pearl-gray 


€h.  V]       Enjoyment  of  Nature.    Compensation  59 

sky  holding  one  throbbing  planet  over  dark  Mount  Mansfield 
— there  was  something  beyond  my  eyes,  as  surely  as  there 
was  beyond  those  of  the  tadpole  in  my  pond. 

After  I  saw  this,  I  found  "  something  beyond  "  in  another 
sense,  but  still  in  the  same  sense.  I  could  not  sleep,  and 
so  I  wrote  what  happened.  The  dawn,  which  is  seldom 
reported  in  words  or  pictures,  is,  other  things  even,  more 
interesting  than  the  sunset — certainly  more  cheering,  as  com- 
ing light  is  more  cheering  than  coming  darkness.  But  there 
is  a  difference  in  the  other  direction  too,  as  the  night  is  poetry, 
and  the  daylight  prose. 

As  I  watch,  above  the  mountains  the  gray  turns  to  yellow; 
the  yellow  to  pink,  the  blue  higher  up  growing  more  intense, 
and  the  mountains  growing  blue  with  it;  and  then  the  blue 
far  up  in  the  sky  gradually  comes  down  and  absorbs  the 
lighter  colors. 

Across  the  wide  valley  below  the  deep  blue  mountains,  the 
black  trees  rise  here  and  there  above  the  mists.  The  mist* 
spread  over  the  swamps  and  the  lines  of  streams. 

The  cattle  in  the  pastures  begin  lowing,  and  the  dog  barks, 
as  he  herds  them  for  their  milking. 

Now  the  mists  have  grown  so  that,  beyond  the  low  foothills, 
they  make,  over  the  Winooski  River,  a  gray  line  against  the 
great  blue  mountains.  This  side  of  the  foothills,  in  the 
fields,  the  light  greens  and  yellows  of  different  crops  begin 
to  show — all  offset  by  gray  in  the  pastures,  and  by  the 
nearer  mists  with  the  black  trees  jutting  from  them. 

The  sky  over  the  mountains  is  very  light  now,  but  shades 
fast  into  the  dark  blue  of  the  zenith.  The  planet  has  climbed 
far  up  into  that,  and  is  still  bright  there. 

The  scene  began  to  take  on  its  everyday  look  before  the 
sun  came.  I  did  not  wait  for  him,  but  went  to  bed. 

But  how  richly  I  had  been  compensated  for  a  restless 
night,  and  even  for  the  mischief  it  is  going  to  raise  in  an 
exacting  day!  And  I  must  illustrate  one  of  the  truths  for 
the  sake  of  which  I  am  writing  this  book,  by  saying  that 
much  as  the  slight  infirmity  which  causes  me  restless  nights 
and  early  wakings,  has  eaten  into  working  power — much  even 
as  it  may  eat  into  the  fag-end  of  old  age,  I  have,  in  ways 
similar  to  last  night's,  and  in  many  widely  different  ways, 


60  The  Known  Universe  and  the  Unknown       [Bk.  I 

been  richly  paid.     He  is  a  wise  man  who  knows  unerringly 
what  to  call  a  misfortune. 

But  to  return  to  our  demonstration.  In  the  first  place, 
the  difference  between  the  tadpole's  sight  and  mine  having 
come  by  a  slow  evolution,  is  there  any  reason  whatever  to 
believe  that  the  evolution  is  finished  at  just  the  colors  my 
sight  responds  to  now?  There  are  plenty  of  existing  eyes 
otherwise  normal  that  do  not  respond  to  all  the  colors  to 
which  most  eyes  already  do :  even  to-day  some  people  see 
only  brown  where  others  see  red  or  green,  and  a  daylight 
landscape  appears  to  them  only  much  as  an  extra-bright 
moonlight  one.  Still  such  defective  eyes  do  respond  better 
than,  probably  within  historic  times,  eyes  in  general  did. 

This  point  has  had  a  very  interesting  but,  as  we  shall  see, 
somewhat  questionable  treatment  by  Dr.  Bucke  (Cosmic  Con- 
sciousness: Philadelphia,  1901  and  1905).  He  first  quotes  on 
p.  28,  Max  Miiller  (Science  of  Thought,  I,  229)  : 

"  It  is  well  known  that  the  distinction  of  color  is  of  late  date ; 
that  Xenophanes  knew  of  three  colors  of  the  rainbow  only — 
purple,  red,  and  yellow;  that  even  Aristotle  spoke  of  the  tri- 
colored  rainbow;  and  that  Democritus  knew  of  no  more  than 
four  colors — black,  white,  red,  and  yellow." 

Then  Dr.  Bucke  goes  on  to  say: 

"  Geiger  (Contributions  to  the  History  of  the  Development  of 
the  Human  Race.  Translated  by  David  Asher,  London,  1880, 
p.  48)  points  out  that  it  can  be  proved  by  examination  of  lan- 
guage that  as  late  in  the  life  of  the  race  as  the  time  of  the  primi- 
tive Aryans,  perhaps  not  more  than  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand 
years  ago,  man  was  only  conscious  of,  only  perceived,  one  color. 
That  is  to  say,  he  did  not  distinguish  any  difference  in  tint  be- 
tween the  blue  sky,  the  green  trees  and  grass,  the  brown  or  gray 
earth,  and  the  golden  and  purple  clouds  of  sunrise  and  sunset. 
So  Pictet  (Les  Origines  Indo-Europeennes,  Paris,  1877,  II)  finds 
no  names  of  colors  in  primitive  Indo-European  speech.  And 
Max  Miiller  (op.  cit.,  II,  616)  finds  no  Sanskrit  root  whose  mean- 
ing has  any  reference  to  color." 

Then  Dr.  Bucke  continues,  without  specific  references : 

"  At  a  later  period,  but  still  before  the  time  of  the  oldest  lit- 
erary compositions  now  extant,  the  color  sense  was  so  far  de- 
veloped beyond  this  primitive  condition  that  red  and  black  were 


Ch.  V]  Evolution  of  Sight  61 

recognized  as  distinct.  Still  later,  at  the  time  when  the  bulk  of 
the  Rig  Veda  was  composed,  red,  yellow,  and  black  were  recog- 
nized as  three  separate  shades,  but  these  three  included  all  color 
that  man  at  that  age  was  capable  of  appreciating.  Still  later 
white  was  added  to  the  list  and  then  green;  but  throughout  the 
Rig  Veda,  the  Zend  Avesta,  the  Homeric  poems,  and  the  Bible 
the  color  of  the  sky  is  not  once  mentioned,  therefore,  apparently, 
was  not  recognized.  For  the  omission  can  hardly  be  attributed 
to  accident;  the  ten  thousand  lines  of  the  Rig  Veda  are  largely 
occupied  with  descriptions  of  the  sky ;  and  all  its  features — sun, 
moon,  stars,  clouds,  lightning,  sunrise,  and  sunset — are  men- 
tioned hundreds  of  times.  So  also  the  Zend  Avesta,  to  the 
writers  of  which  light  and  fire,  both  terrestrial  and  heavenly, 
are  sacred  objects,  could  hardly  have  omitted  by  chance  all 
mention  of  the  blue  sky.  In  the  Bible  the  sky  and  heaven  are 
mentioned  more  than  four  hundred  and  thirty  times,  and  still 
no  mention  is  made  of  the  color  of  the  former.  In  no  part  of  the 
world  is  the  blue  of  the  sky  more  intense  than  in  Greece  and 
Asia  Minor,  where  the  Homeric  poems  were  composed.  Is  it 
possible  to  conceive  that  a  poet  (or  the  poets)  who  saw  this  as 
we  see  it  now  could  write  the  forty-eight  long  books  of  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  and  never  once  either  mention  or  refer  to  itf 
But  were  it  possible  to  believe  that  all  the  poets  of  the  Rig  Veda, 
Zend  Avesta,  Iliad,  Odyssey,  and  Bible  could  have  omitted  the 
mention  of  the  blue  color  of  the  sky  by  mere  accident,  etymology 
would  step  in  and  assure  us  that  four  thousand  years  ago,  or, 
perhaps,  three,  blue  was  unknown,  for  at  that  time  the  subse- 
quent names  for  blue  were  all  merged  in  the  names  for  black. 

"  The  English  word  Hue  and  the  German  blau  descend  from 
a  word  that  meant  black.  The  Chinese  hi-u-an,  which  now 
means  sky-blue,  formerly  meant  black.  The  word  nil,  which  now 
in  Persian  and  Arabic  means  blue,  is  derived  from  the  name 
Nile,  that  is,  the  black  river,  of  which  same  word  the  Latin 
Niger  is  a  form." 

Homer  certainly  had  a  word  for  blue,  though  he  may  not 
have  applied  it  to  the  sky. 

This  last  statement — that  I  ever  got  transformed  into  g — 
makes  me  prick  up  my  ears,  but  perhaps  it  would  not  if  I 
knew  more;  and  we  need  not  let  it  fatally  affect  the  whole 
paragraph,  or  the  statements  (op.  tit.,  30,  31) : 

"  As  the  sensations  red  and  black  came  into  existence  by  the 
division  of  an  original  unital  color  sensation,  so  in  process  of 
time  these  divided.  First  red  divided  into  red-yellow,  then  that 
red  into  red-white.  Black  divided  into  black-green,  then  black 
again  into  black-blue,  and  during  the  last  twenty-five  hundred 
years  these  six  (or  rather  these  four — red,  yellow,  green,  blue) 


62  The  Known  Universe  and  the  Unknown       [Bk.  I 

have  split  up  into  the  enormous  number  of  shades  of  color  which 

are  now  recognized  and  named 

"  The  power  of  exciting  vision  of  the  red  rays  is  several 
thousand  times  as  great  as  the  energy  of  the  violet,  and  there  is 
a  regular  and  rapid  decrease  of  energy  as  we  pass  down  the 
spectrum  from  red  to  violet.  It  is  plain  that  if  there  has  been 
such  a  thing  as  a  growing  perfection  in  the  sense  of  vision  in 
virtue  of  which,  from  being  insensible  to  color  the  eye  became 
gradually  sensible  of  it,  red  would  necessarily  be  the  first  color 
perceived,  then  yellow,  then  green,  and  so  on  to  violet;  and  this 
is  exactly  what  both  ancient  literature  and  etymology  tell  us 
took  place." 

But  in  the  face  of  all  this  pretty  demonstration  and  these 
great  authorities,  stand  the  facts  that  the  Egyptians  used 
color  very  well  four  or  five  thousand  years  before  Christ,  and 
that  the  people  in  the  Dordogne  caves  used  it  as  much,  prob- 
ably, as  twenty  thousand  years  before.  Moreover,  recent 
savages  in  a  state  presumably  far  behind  that  of  the  peoples 
whose  writings  are  quoted  by  Dr.  Bucke  and  his  authorities, 
use  many  colors,  and  often  with  skill  that  puts  civilized  man 
to  his  trumps.  Among  them,  however,  we  should  be  slow  to 
put  our  wampum-making  Indians:  for  they  used  the  colored 
beads  which  we  gave  them.  But  we  found  them  with  their 
senses  far  enough  evolved  to  appreciate  those  beads,  as  good 
William  Penn  knew  to  his  profit. 

Yet  although  Dr.  Bucke  may  claim  too  much,  what  he 
gives  us  is  interesting  and  suggestive  and  in  the  general  line 
of  evolution;  and  as  we  go  on,  we  shall  meet  growing  reason 
to  look  for  truth  on  both  sides  in  most  conflicts  between 
theories,  and  even  between  theories  and  facts. 

It  is  an  interesting  question  whether  the  eye  as  we 
know  it,  is  to  be  farther  differentiated  to  report  more  colors, 
or  whether  we  must  depend  for  farther  knowledge  of  the 
invisible  ends  of  the  spectrum,  upon  instruments  of  our 
own  devising.  Somehow  phenomena  for  which  we  have  to 
depend  on  instruments,  do  not  seem  as  really  parts  of  our 
very  own  universe,  as  phenomena  reported  directly  by  our 
senses.  It  seems  more  in  accord  with  the  beneficence  so 
prominent  throughout  previous  evolution,  that  our  senses 
shall  be  expanded.  Yet  on  the  other  hand,  while  that  would 
be  more  joy,  it  would  not  exercise  our  new  and  ineffably 


Ch.  V]  Senses  still  Evolving  63 

valuable  power  of  inventing  instruments  and  hypotheses,  and 
finding  laws  for  ourselves. 

As  with  the  eye,  so  with  the  ear.  Is  it  going  to  stop 
at  ten  octaves,  when  even  some  insects  appear  to  hear  higher 
tones  than  we  can,  and  the  whale  lower? 

So  with  the  other  senses.  All  are  of  course,  like  sight  and 
hearing,  the  products  of  an  evolution  in  response  to  the  en- 
vironment. Almost  equally  of  course,  then,  they  are  yet  but 
small  parts  of  a  possible— even  probable  development. 

In  dreams,  when  separated  from  the  activities  of  the  body, 
consciousness  approaches  such  experience  of  new  faculties — 
the  surmounting  of  time  and  space  and  gravitation;  and  we 
cannot  declare  it  impossible  that  consciousness  separated  alto- 
gether from  the  body  should  have  such  experiences,  even  to 
a  degree  compared  with  which  the  difference  between  a 
creature  with  one  sense  and  a  creature  with  six  senses,  is 
trifling. 

Men  now  living  have  seen  striking  evidence  that  such 
development  is  going  on.  Some  very  competent  observers 
think  they  are  now  watching  the  most  tremendous  of  all 
evolutions  yet  known  in  the  faculties  themselves,  of  which 
more  later. 

As  with  the  faculties,  so,  as  already  intimated,  with  the 
universe.  As  nearly  all  the  universe  we  know  is  outside  the 
protozob'n's,  are  not  the  indications  virtually  conclusive  that, 
outside  of  the  one  we  know,  there  is  more,  bearing  to  ours 
a  ratio  greater  than  ours  bears  to  the  protozoon's?  What 
reason  have  we  to  believe  that  all  the  universe  revealable 
to  a  possible  sense  of  sight,  is  revealed  to  ours?  We  have 
excellent  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  not.  By  photography  and 
the  Roentgen  apparatus,  we  can  now  find  at  the  ends  of  the 
spectrum,  rays  from  which  our  eyes  as  yet  get  no  direct 
sensation  whatever.  Instruments  show  us  longer  and  shorter, 
and  slower  and  quicker  vibrations  than  those  of  which  our 
senses  take  direct  cognizance.  And  even  between  the  two 
extremes  that  we  do  cognize,  there  seem  to  be  gaps  that  we  do 
not.  This  amounts  to  an  almost  mathematical  reinforcement 
of  the  demonstration  already  given — that  the  sensizable  uni- 
verse, with  its  bounteous  gifts  to  the  intellect  and  the  emo- 


64  The  Known  Universe  and  the  Unknown       [Bk.  I 

tions,  with  the  numberless  avenues  for  exploration  that  it 
offers  the  adventurous  soul,  and  with  the  numberless  new 
gifts  it  undoubtedly  holds  at  the  ends  of  those  avenues,  is, 
after  all,  but  a  mere  foretaste  of  a  universe  waiting  for  the 
enjoyment  of  eyes  evolved  beyond  ours,  and  containing  intel- 
lectual and  emotional  exaltations  that  our  blind  gropings 
even  now  touch  without  understanding. 

Truths  similar  to  those  illustrated  regarding  the  visible 
universe,  must  hold  even  more  strongly  regarding  the  audible 
universe,  because  music  is  far  the  youngest  of  the  arts:  it 
has  no  masterpiece  two  hundred  years  old,  while  all  the  other 
arts  have  masterpieces  over  two  thousand. 

And  yet  are  degrees  between  fragments  so  small  in  com- 
parison with  the  probable  wholes,  worth  considering?  The 
phraseology,  however,  assumes  that  the  wholes  are  open  to 
human  conception — a  weakness  haunting  the  phraseology  of 
philosophic  speculation. 

The  evidence,  then,  seems  conclusive  from  the  evolution 
of  the  recognized  faculties,  not  to  speak  of  the  vague  new 
ones  now  the  objects  of  so  much  research,  that  in  proportion 
to  our  senses,  we  know  virtually  as  little  of  the  universe  around 
us,  as,  in  proportion  to  his  senses,  does  the  jelly-fish  floating 
in  the  dancing  sunlit  water  among  the  yachts  and  the  bathers, 
and  touching  the  loveliest  of  them  with  the  same  sensation 
as  if  she  were  a  floating  log. 

And  yet  the  myriad  particulars,  objective  and  subjective, 
which  make  our  universe  so  different  from  the  jelly-fish's, 
would  probably,  when  compared  with  the  whole  universe  (so 
far  as  our  minds  can  grasp  the  idea  of  a  "  whole  "  universe) 
show  a  ratio  smaller  than  does  the  jelly-fish's  universe  when 
compared  with  ours. 

In  a  word,  evolution  has  demonstrated  the  existence  of  a 
Heaven,  and  instead  of  being  up  above  us  (which  meant 
something  before  Copernicus  and  Newton)  it  is  all  around 
us  and  in  us,  only  waiting  for  faculty  to  recognize  it.  Nay, 
we  have  been  living  in  it  all  the  time.  If  to  the  Heaven  I 
tried  to  describe  from  my  summer-house  and  my  east  window, 
could  be  added  reunion  with  those  I  have  lost,  and  gratifica- 
tion of  divine  curiosities  just  fast  enough  to  prevent  dulling 
them,  I,  for  one,  don't  want  any  better  Heaven. 


Ch.  V]        Senses  Reveal  but  Parts  of  Reality  65 

Or  from  another  point  of  view,  did  human  imagination 
ever  devise  an  entrance  into  Heaven,  to  be  compared  with 
the  experience  of  a  person  born  blind,  suddenly  restored  to 
sight  in  presence  of  a  beautiful  landscape,  or  better  still,  of 
a  beautiful  and  beloved  person?  Yet  experiences  of  the 
same  nature,  but  immeasurably  greater,  cannot  be  held  im- 
possible to  a  creature  without  a  sense,  or  with  only  one, 
or  two,  or  five,  or  any  number.  Whatever  the  number,  we 
cannot  conceive  the  impossibility  of  another  sense  being  added 
to  the  organism,  or  another  field  of  response  existing  in  the 
objective  universe. 

But  while  the  universe  of  the  higher  organism  is  a  heaven 
compared  with  the  universe  of  the  lower  organism,  it  is  not 
generally  appreciated  as  such:  for  in  only  exceptional  cases 
has  it  had  the  benefit  of  the  immediate  contrast  between  blind- 
ness and  sight,  or  deafness  and  hearing. 

However,  each  appearance  has  been  only  an  appearance — a 
quality :  the  "  thing  in  itself  "  is  unknown  to  us,  and  appar- 
ently must  remain  unknown  to  us,  except  so  far  as  its 
phenomena  are  revealed.  Put  yourself  on  Lake  Champlain  or 
one  of  the  few  lakes  to  compare  with  it,  or  in  the  Yosemite, 
or  by  the  Grand  Canyon,  or  at  Zermatt,  realize  that  the 
immeasurable  source  of  strong,  beautiful,  beneficent  (is  it  too 
much  to  say  benevolent?)  Power,  is  revealing  itself  to  you  in 
the  vibrations  entering  your  eyes;  regard  the  scene  as  simply 
a  lovely  aspect  of  an  infinite  source  of  loveliness  partially  re- 
vealing itself  to  you,  and  probably  to  reveal  to  our  descendants 
immeasurably  more  of  itself  in  ways  that  beggar  our  imagina- 
tion; or  go  and  listen  to  great  music,  and  realize  it  as  a 
revelation,  through  the  composer,  of  the  same  Power; 
saturate  your  soul  with  such  revelations,  and  then,  that 
you  may  appreciate  them  all  the  better,  contrast  them  with 
the  gross  and  fantastic  and  often  hideous  pictures  with 
which,  under  the  name  of  revelations,  barbarous  priests 
have  imposed  the  awful  power  of  mystery  on  barbarous 
peoples. 

But  the  powers  of  mystery  are  lovely  as  well  as  awful. 
The  mists  and  mountains  and  dark  shadows  opposite  me  as 
I  write,  are  both.  I  do  not  read  their  meaning,  as  I  read 
the  meaning  of  a2  -f  2ab  +  b2,  but  they  lift  and  expand 


66  The  Known  Universe  and  the  Unknown      [Bk.  I 

and  deepen  the  soul  as  do  no  meanings  that  I  can  read ;  and 
while  they  raise  the  most  terrible  questions,  they  answer 
them  with :  "  Peace !  Wait !  Work !  Earn  the  rest  that  you 
feel  is  in  Us!  All  will  be  well!" 


CHAPTER  VI 
SOME  ETHICAL  ASPECTS  OP  EVOLUTION 

WITH  suggestion  of  the  Beneficence  which  has  been  breed- 
ing from  our  deaf  and  blind  ancestors  a  progeny  that  enjoys 
the  universe  open  to  us,  comes  the  question:  What  need 
of  the  ancestors'  being  deaf  and  blind?  Perhaps  an  answer 
whose  consistency  with  the  fact  would  not  be  its  sole  merit 
would  be :  "  None  of  your  business." 

But  really  it  is  no  detraction  from  the  Beneficence  (or 
any  other  name  that  you  may  see  fit  to  spell  with  a  capital) 
doing  the  evolution,  that  the  evolution  did  not  begin  higher 
up.  We  cannot  conceive  its  doing  so,  any  more  than  we  can 
really  conceive  a  creation.  Just  at  what  point  would  our 
wisdom  have  the  evolution  begin,  and  what  reason  have  we  to 
believe  that  it  could  begin  in  any  other  way  than  it  did,  or 
that  the  inflow  of  the  Cosmic  Soul  into  us  can  be  attained 
in  any  other  way  than  through  just  that  evolution?  The 
Power  does  not  seem  to  have  been  able  to  make  the  universe 
perfect,  and  yet  we  assume  the  power  to  be  unlimited — what- 
ever that  may  mean,  in  spite  of  all  the  evidence  indicating 
that  it  is  not  Here  comes  in  the  inconsistency  that  we  allege 
between  an  all-wise,  all-good,  and  all-powerful  God,  and  the 
existence  of  suffering.  What  do  we  know  about  "  all,"  except 
all  of  some  limited  thing?  The  very  phrase  is  part  of  that 
nonsense-jabbering  that  we  always  fall  into  when  we  use  words 
greater  than  our  actual  conceptions.  We  merely  assume  such 
a  God,  despite  the  facts  that  we  cannot  conceive  one,  and  we 
never  saw  any  evidence  of  the  existence  of  one. 

We  simply  see  the  greatest  power  we  know,  but  a  power 
we  know  to  be  imperfect,  evolving  the  greatest  universe  we 
know,  but  a  universe  we  know  to  be  imperfect.  We  have 
much  reason  to  believe  that  we  are  to  see  more ;  but  to  juggle 
with  words  that  imply  having  seen  all,  or  having  seen  what 
we  have  not,  is  to  babble  idiocy. 
67 


68  Some  Ethical  Aspects  of  Evolution          [Bk.  I 

All  this  suggested  to  Mill  a  deputy  god  of  inferior  powers — 
a  queer  suggestion  for  a  man  of  his  ability  to  entertain: 
for  the  need  of  a  deputy  arises  only  from  the  principal's 
limitations :  so  why  not  admit  them  at  once,  without  lugging 
in  the  deputy,  or  bothering  ourselves  to  reconcile  them  with 
the  gratuitous  pseud-ideas  of  an  almighty  and  all-benevolent 
cause  and  regulator  of  the  universe?  For  our  purposes,  the 
Cause  is  just  powerful  enough  and  just  benevolent  enough 
to  produce,  so  far,  the  universe  as  we  know  it,  no  more  and 
no  less;  and  if  we  are  not  satisfied  with  that  amount  of 
power  and  benevolence,  after  we  have  watched  life  long 
enough  to  realize  the  good  evolved  from  its  evils,  and  to 
catch  glimpses  of  the  possibilities  of  vastly  greater  future 
good,  we  are  pretty  hard  to  please. 

The  real  indications  are  of  the  obvious  fact  that  our  powers 
of  apprehension  are  not  unlimited.  We  are  even  so  stupid 
that  we  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  the  universe  is  full 
of  imperfections  and  suffering  and  death,  when  it  is  no  such 
thing:  it  does  contain  imperfections,  suffering,  and  death, 
but  anybody  who  says  it  is  "  full  of "  them,  simply  has 
diseased  perceptions.  The  sad  facts  play  a  very  minor  part. 
As  I  write  this  in  my  summer-house,  the  sheep  are  bleating 
as  they  feed  in  the  sunlight  down  the  hill,  sleek  and  happy. 
All  summer  I've  enjoyed  watching  them  enjoy  themselves. 
During  that  time  half  a  dozen  have  been  killed  by  dogs. 
There  are  scores  of  them  left.  Shall  I  say  that  their  universe 
is  "full  of"  dogs  and  death?  More  of  them  have  been 
killed  for  my  table.  Am  I  proved  capable  of  nothing  but 
ruthless  murder? 

Despite  the  misery  in  the  universe,  the  joy  is  there,  and 
immensely  preponderant;  and  we  constantly  see  the  misery 
working  out  good. 

This  is  a  fact  apt  to  be  denied  by  the  inexperienced  and 
unreflecting,  and  realized  only  as  life  grows  longer  and 
richer.  Yet  assertions  of  it  abound  in  the  utterances  of 
those  whose  thought  is  wisest  and  deepest.  For  proofs  of 
it,  however,  one  is  generally  thrown  back  on  his  own  ex- 
perience: because  such  proofs  are  most  frequent  and  con- 
vincing in  the  things  locked  in  each  one's  own  breast.  They 


Ch.  VI]          Detailed  Reach  of  Natural  Law  69 

are  seldom  known  to  the  biographers,  and  still  more  seldom 
given  by  the  autobiographers — and  when  the  fundamental 
facts  are  known,  their  relations  are  seldom  realized.  Pious 
souls — and  many  souls  have  been  made  pious  by  such  ex- 
perience— often  delight  in  pouring  out  their  convictions  of 
the  beneficence  of  God  in  bringing  good  from  evil,  but 
where  their  convictions  rest  on  their  actual  experiences  of 
real  life,  and  not  on  mere  religious  ecstasy,  they  are  natu- 
rally slow  to  expose  the  experiences  to  the  world,  espe- 
cially as  the  secrets  of  others  are  so  often  interwoven  with 
them. 

Many  must  have  wondered  if  it  was  not  a  duty  to  do 
violence  to  their  own  feelings,  and  give  the  world  the  benefit 
of  such  experience ;  but  if,  as  an  extreme  instance,  the  prema- 
ture death  of  someone  useful  and  admirable  and  loved,  has 
been  demonstrated  in  the  course  of  many  years  to  have 
made  possible  for  the  survivors,  shifts  in  the  kaleidoscope  of 
life  so  good  that  the  lost  one  would  gladly  have  died  to 
effect  them,  to  proclaim  the  particulars  might  not  only  expose 
to  the  cold  world  the  tenderest  feelings  of  many  survivors, 
but  might  appear  an  underestimate  of  the  life  that  is  lost, 
and  a  lack  of  affection  for  the  memory.  And  yet  there  is 
probably  nobody  of  much  experience  and  reflection,  who  does 
not  know  of  just  such  instances. 

Moreover,  in  many  such  cases,  the  preponderance  of  good 
rests  on  the  assumption  that  the  life  is  continued  beyond:  I 
do  not  mean  the  easy  general  assumption  that  the  lost  one 
has  entered  into  a  state  of  bliss  beside  which  the  agonies  of 
illness  and  death,  and  the  sufferings  of  survivors,  are  as 
nothing ;  but  I  mean  a  set  of  very  obvious  consequences  which 
would  be  rational  in  the  extreme  if  there  is  a  future  existence 
very  much  like  this  one  to  round  them  out,  while  without  the 
possibility  of  such  consequences  in  an  after  life,  the  present 
life  often  seems  like  chaos. 

And  yet  even  that  chaos  can  often  be  resolved  by  bravely 
and  candidly  offsetting  life's  joys  against  its  sorrows,  finding 
it  as  good  as  it  generally  is,  and  assuming  the  peace  of 
oblivion  at  the  end. 

That,  however,  is  not  the  whole  matter:  for  the  educating 
influence  of  suffering  in  life  here,  as  we  know  it,  is  highly 


70  Some  Ethical  Aspects  of  Evolution          [Bk.  I 

valued  by  the  best  souls,  and  its  recognition  is  so  general  as  to 
be  almost  a  commonplace. 

Yet  when  one  realizes  that  the  universe  is  governed  by 
law,  it  is  hard  to  realize  a  law  comprehensive  enough  to 
reach  down  into  the  details  of  each  life,  and  make  its  reverses 
what  the  character  needs — to  pick  out  among  all  the  apparent 
jumble  of  microbes  and  snakes  and  tigers  and  bad  machines 
and  explosions,  just  the  one  and  at  just  the  time,  that  each 
human  being  needs  it  to  do  him  or  his  survivors  good. 

Equally  hard  is  it  to  imagine  a  law  which  much  oftener 
sends  the  apparent  "  accidents "  of  happiness  in  the  same 
way.  And  yet  some  of  the  wisest  of  earth  very  strongly  and 
deliberately  suspect — not  a  few  of  them  hold  as  a  belief 
founded  on  frequent  verification,  that  the  Law  and  the  Power 
great  enough  to  swing  the  stars,  is  also  delicate  enough  to  do 
just  those  little  things.  It  has  often  been  found  worth  while 
to  search  life  and  conscience  closely  for  the  evidences. 

Among  the  things  hard  to  realize  a  generation  ago — and 
much  harder  the  generations  ago  when  the  litanies  were  com- 
posed, would  have  been  the  attitude  now  growing  more  general 
toward  one  more  hard  subject.  *We  know  now  that  among 
the  greatest  humbugs  ever  imposed  upon  humanity  by  human- 
ity, or  inhumanity,  has  been  the  horror  of  death.  As  the  views 
inculcated  by  the  priest  for  his  revenue's  sake  are  gradually 
disappearing,  we  are  gradually  realizing  that  death  is  a  much- 
maligned  institution,  and  that,  except  in  its  apparent  incon- 
gruities with  the  useful  and  hopeful,  it  has,  everything 
considered,  much  to  commend  it.  As  evolution  is  making 
life  more  normal,  death  becomes  more  normal — nearer  a 
mere  long-awaited  and  welcome  release  from  weariness  and 
ennui.  Weariness  and  ennui  are  inevitable  under  limited 
conditions:  the  wider  the  conditions,  however,  the  longer  it 
takes  to  get  tired  of  them;  but  the  time  must  come.  The 
question  therefore  is  really :  Why  are  our  conditions  limited  ? 
and  our  answer  is:  Whatever  impressions  like  the  worm's 
impressions  of  scenery  and  music,  we  may  get  outside  of 
time,  space,  matter,  motion,  and  force,  while  we  are  subject 
to  them,  no  mortal  mind  can  really  conceive  of  unlimited 
conditions.  It  seems  to  follow,  absurd  as  it  may  at  first 


Ch.  VI]  Legitimacy  of  Speculation  71 

appear,  that  no  mortal  mind  can  conceive  of  conditions  under 
which  death  must  not  in  time  be  a  blessing.  That  now  it 
»o  often  comes  prematurely  as  to  seem,  and  probably  to 
be,  a  curse,  is  a  corollary  of  imperfect  evolution.  But  if,  in 
our  erring  judgments,  we  must  regard  it  as  worse  or  better 
than  it  is,  what  have  we  to  gain  by  regarding  it  as  worse? 
There  is  a  rapidly  reviving  impression  that  we  don't  know 
much  about  it  anyhow,  and  that  the  little  we  do  know  is 
the  worst  there  is  to  know. 

Part  of  the  bad  is  the  apparent  fact  that  the  universe 
beyond  our  senses  must  remain  unenjoyed  by  us  if  death 
ends  all.  This  tends  to  make  the  faith  in  such  a  universe 
more  tantalizing  than  inspiring;  but  as  we  proceed,  we  may 
find  some  reasons  why  it  should  not  be  tantalizing. 

We  have  now  been  through  such  a  summary  as  conditions 
permit  of  the  reactions  between  soul  and  universe  covered  by 
our  present  knowledge — by  our  recognized  faculties  on  one 
side,  and  such  phenomena  as  we  have  been  able  to  correlate, 
on  the  other. 

But  it  is  a  plain  corollary  of  evolution  that  there  should 
at  times  appear  germs  of  faculty  but  faintly  and  rarely 
apprehended,  giving  rise  to  phenomena  new,  strange,  doubt- 
ful. In  this  vague  field  lie  many,  perhaps  most,  of  our  future 
possibilities,  and  it  would  be  a  very  chary  review  of  our 
cosmic  relations  that  should  leave  it  out,  or  that  even  should 
refrain  from  any  inferences  regarding  the  unknown  that 
our  faint  glimpses  of  it  may  legitimately  suggest.  It  is 
even  true  that  as  the  old  forms  of  belief  regarding  the  cause 
and  fate  of  the  universe  and  the  soul,  are  nearly  all  gone, 
the  old  fervors  and  the  old  despairs  are  nearly  all  gone  too; 
and  with  them  seem  gone  nearly  all  great  productive  powers 
of  the  spirit;  and  the  world,  with  its  great  new  mechanical 
inventions,  is  absorbed  as  never  before  since  Rome  fell,  in  the 
luxuries  of  material  things. 

The  making  of  inferences  regarding  the  unsensed  universe, 
notwithstanding  their  inevitable  uncertainty  and  unverifia- 
bility,  has  been,  the  vast  majority  think,  of  great  benefit 
to  mankind:  for  the  universe  we  do  not  know  is  presumably 
far  more  important — possibly  even  to  us  in  ways  dimly  sensed 


72  Some  Ethical  Aspects  of  Evolution          [Bk.  I 

— than  the  universe  we  do  know,  and  the  vague  borderland 
between  the  known  and  the  unknown  is  the  field  of  much 
of  poetry  and  the  other  arts. 

Every  good  strong  emotion — and  possibly  every  bad  strong 
emotion  (which  must  be  a  misapplication  or  an  excess  of  a 
good  one)  brings  the  soul  to  the  borders  of  the  unknown — 
to  the  frame  of  mind  where  one  is  very  apt  to  cry  out: 
"  God ! "  and  sometimes  as  apt  to  cry  it  out  in  oath  as  in 
prayer.  De  Quincey  speaks  of  literature  as  giving  "  exercise 
and  expansion  to  your  own  latent  capacity  of  sympathy  with 
the  infinite,  where  every  pulse  and  each  separate  influx  is  a 
step  upwards,  a  step  ascending  as  upon  a  Jacob's  ladder 
from  earth  to  mysterious  altitudes  above  the  earth/'  This 
is  at  least  equally  the  effect  of  great  music,  painting,  sculp- 
ture, even  architecture — of  beauty  in  all  its  forms,  most 
perhaps  of  the  great  aspects  of  Nature,  including  humanity. 

Certain  it  is  that  without  an  abiding  consciousness  that 
the  known  mass  of  phenomena  is  not  all,  and  that  behind 
them  is  a  cause  transcending  our  imaginations,  life  loses  some 
of  its  best  emotions,  the  imagination  grows  arid,  and  the 
moral  impulses  shrink.  While  what  we  know,  and  the  in- 
creasing of  it,  can  more  than  occupy  all  our  working  powers, 
they  work  all  the  better  for  an  occasional  dream  of  greater 
and  less  troubled  things. 

When  imaginations  of  the  unknown  world  have  most  filled 
the  consciousness,  mankind  has  done  its  greatest  creative 
work.  For  three  thousand  years,  under  both  classical  mythol- 
ogy and  Christianity,  the  great  outpourings  of  genius  sprang 
from  a  consciousness  saturated  with  relationships  assumed, 
whether  truly  or  falsely,  to  personal  gods  and  immortal  life. 
That  consciousness  built  the  Greek  temples  and  the  Gothic 
cathedrals;  it  carved  the  Apollo  Belvedere  and  painted  the 
Sistine  Madonna;  it  wrote  the  Iliad  and  the  Inferno  and 
the  Paradise  Lost;  it  composed  the  masses  of  Haydn  and 
Beethoven  and  the  Stabat  Mater;  and  it  has  done  more  to 
shape  the  conduct  of  mankind  than  all  the  science,  all  the 
codes,  and  all  the  armies:  for  though  it  has  not  shaped 
the  sciences,  it  has  inspired  the  codes,  and  impelled  most  of 
the  armies. 

These  relations  to  the  unknown  have  often  been  lost  sight 


Ch.  VI]      Inspiring  Interest  in  the  Unknown  73 

of  and  ignored,  but  yet  so  generally  and  persistently  have 
they  been  felt  that  until  lately  they  constituted  most  of  the 
atmosphere  in  which  even  the  skeptic  led  his  moral  and 
emotional  life;  their  fervors  and  their  terrors  made  virtually 
all  of  man's  existence  vibrant:  whatever  may  have  been  his 
speculations,  ambitions,  lusts,  there  was  no  escaping  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  mysteries  of  the  universe  and  the  obligations 
of  the  moral  law,  with  all  their  power  to  terrify  or  inspire. 
The  robber  baron  built  a  church,  the  Sicilian  brigand  prayed 
for  the  success  of  his  expeditions,  and  even  yet  the  "  criminal 
rich,"  as  well  as  the  rich  not  criminal,  give  freely  for  re- 
ligious uses.  These  emotions  have  probably  been  the  greatest 
of  world-influences  since  men  began  to  take  the  universe 
seriously.  When,  in  the  rhythmic  course  of  Nature,  great 
waves  of  them  have  rolled  up,  they  have  generally  come 
nearly  at  the  same  time  with  great  epochs  of  literature  and 
art.  The  struggles  of  the  early  church  were  followed  by 
the  literary  inspirations  of  St.  Augustine.  Baphael  and 
Luther  were  born  the  same  year,  and  Michelangelo  only 
eight  years  before.  The  harrowing  of  the  English  Church 
by  Henry  VIII  was  the  precursor  of  Shakespere  and  his 
companions;  the  Huguenot  persecutions  brought  the  age 
of  the  great  French  dramatists  and  pulpit  orators;  the  wars 
of  the  Cavaliers  and  Puritans  bred  Milton,  and  presaged 
the  literature  of  Queen  Anne;  the  great  school  of  American 
writers  was  born  of  the  struggle  of  the  free  spirit  against 
Puritanism;  the  Victorian  age  in  Literature  was  the  age  of 
conflict  between  Moses  on  the  one  hand,  and  Lyell,  Darwin, 
and  Spencer  on  the  other. 

Be  it  noted  in  passing  that,  very  often,  these  outbursts  of 
literary  and  artistic  genius  did  not  take  place  in  the  times 
of  greatest  agitation,  but  a  generation  later.  This,  as  I  have 
suggested  before  (Outlook  for  Nov.  24,  1906),  may  go  a  long 
way  to  account  for  genius :  it  seems  to  be  born — not  made  by 
its  own  experiences,  but  by  fervors  experienced  by  its  pro- 
genitors. 

During  all  these  birth-throes  of  the  spirit,  whatever  differ- 
ences of  opinion  there  were  regarding  the  nature  of  God 
and  of  immortality,  both  were  believed  in,  and  enough  things 
believed  regarding  both,  to  keep  most  of  the  world's  active 


74  Some  Ethical  Aspects  of  Evolution          [Bk.  I 

minds  busy ;  and  to  accompany  the  good  results  of  such  beliefs 
with  a  terrible  amount  of  bad  ones,  including  some  of  the 
worst  tragedies  in  history.  Conflicting  assertions  regarding 
the  supra-phenomenal  unsheathed  the  sword  of  Islam,  and 
gave  western  Europe  the  most  terrible  wars  and  persecutions 
in  history;  for  hundreds  of  years  such  assertions  turned 
friend  against  friend,  brother  against  brother,  parent  against 
child.  As  a  typical  instance  so  recently  as  John  Fiske's  youth 
in  the  late  fifties,  in  a  small  Connecticut  city,  his  denial  of 
orthodox  Christianity  ostracized  him  from  social  intercourse. 

But  the  reaction  from  all  these  extremes  has  been  only  less 
deplorable  than  the  extremes  themselves.  After  so  many 
bad  experiences  from  speculations  regarding  the  unknown, 
it  was  not  a  strange  reaction  to  deny  such  speculations  any 
legitimacy  at  all. 

As  knowledge  widens,  men  depend  more  upon  knowledge, 
and  tend  to  believe  that  absorption  in  the  Beyond,  where  we 
have  no  knowledge,  is  the  deepest  folly,  because  it  is  founding 
our  greatest  interests  in  our  ignorance.  The  systems  of 
belief  reared  regarding  the  Beyond  have  taxed  so  many  of 
the  best  powers  of  the  race,  and  have  so  generally  come  to 
nothing,  that  at  last  many  of  their  most  ardent  admirers, 
while  insisting  that  their  building  has  the  highest  value,  have 
come  to  admit  that  the  value  is  not  in  what  is  built,  but 
in  the  act  of  building — just  as  it  was  generally  held,  a  couple 
of  generations  ago,  that  the  highest  value  of  education  is 
not  in  what  is  learned,  but  in  the  act  of  learning.  To  say 
that  there  is  not  a  grain  of  truth  in  these  positions  would 
be  fatuous — as  fatuous  perhaps  as  the  claim  that  the  pre- 
ponderance of  truth  is  in  them. 

The  best  known  expression  of  this  attitude  is  of  course 
Lessing's  preference  of  "search  for  truth"  to  truth  itself. 
No  sane  man  really  accepts  this,  yet  it  has  been  made  famous 
by  the  unquestionable  poetry  of  its  expression,  and  notorious 
by  the  passion  of  mankind  for  the  intellectual  titillation  given 
by  epigrams  with  a  spice  of  truth  and  a  sharper  spice  of 
contradiction  of  what  is  known  to  be  true.  The  acceptance 
of  such  an  epigram  makes  the  vulgar  feel  wiser  than  the 
acceptance  of  a  plain  truth  that  everybody  can  see.  Yet  the 


Ch.  VI]  Reactions  from  such  Interests  75 

innate  stupidity  of  the  epigram  in  question  is  entirely  in 
keeping  with  the  denouement  of  the  masterwork  in  which 
it  occurs.  Despite  all  the  poets  have  done  for  us,  and  no  men 
have  done  more,  many  of  them  have  a  terrible  amount  to 
answer  for. 

But  it  is  almost  superfluous  to  reiterate  that,  wasted  and 
worse-than-wasted  poetry  and  philosophy  have  been  but  a 
small  part  of  the  negative  effects  of  absorption  in  the  Beyond. 
Dogmatic  statements  regarding  it  have  clashed;  and  quarrels 
when  neither  side  can  be  proved  wrong  are  interminable,  and 
their  passions  illimitable. 

In  reaction  against  all  this,  a  little  after  the  middle  of  the 
last  century,  arose  a  school  led  by  perhaps  the  most  powerful 
mechanical  intellect  yet  known — one  the  immensity  of  whose 
processes  touched  poetry.  This  school  declared :  "  This  uni- 
verse, so  far  as  we  know  it,  can  all  be  expressed  in  mechanical 
terms,  and  we  have  found  the  terms — or  at  least  enough  of 
them  to  show  that  in  time  the  rest  may  be  found;  we  are 
plainly  on  the  track  of  principles  that  cover  all  we  know, 
or  can  know  with  our  tools  for  knowing.  Those  tools  will 
never  carry  us  beyond  phenomena.  Most  of  the  wasted 
strength  of  historic  ages  has  been  in  speculating  beyond  phe- 
nomena, and  most  of  their  miseries  have  come  from  conflict 
of  opinions  on  alleged  questions  beyond  phenomena.  Now 
as  truth  there  if»  not  attainable,  agreement  is  impossible. 
Let  us  stop  all  this  waste  and  worry,  and  busy  ourselves 
with  the  correlation  of  phenomena  by  the  mighty  new  engine 
of  truth  we  have  just  discovered  after  guessing  at  it  for  three 
thousand  years — in  Evolution." 

This  reaction  differed  from  those  led  by  Copernicus  and 
Luther.  That  of  Copernicus  related  primarily  to  the  question 
of  the  earth's  place  and  man's  place,  at  the  center  of  the 
universe.  That  led  by  Luther  related  mainly  to  the  abuses 
in  the  church.  Neither  revolution  materially  disturbed  philo- 
sophic opinions  regarding  man's  origin,  daily  duties,  or  des- 
tiny, or  the  universe  beyond  phenomena,  and  neither  offered 
an  engine  like  evolution  for  the  revision  of  opinions. 

Since  Luther's  day  the  course  of  thought  had  vastly 
widened,  and  yet  it  had  been  so  dammed  back  in  the  churches, 
in  the  schools,  and  even  in  social  relations,  that  when  the 


76  Some  Ethical  Aspects  of  Evolution          [Bk.  I 

dams  were  finally  thrown  down  by  Lyell,  Darwin,  Spencer, 
Huxley,  and  their  friends,  the  flood  of  associations  on  which 
the  old  faiths  depended,  swept  the  faiths  along  with  them, 
and  the  absurdities,  abuses,  persecutions,  and  horrors  which, 
in  the  Christian  and  Moslem  worlds,  had  attended  speculation 
regarding  God  and  Immortality,  were  so  intensely  reacted 
from,  that  for  half  a  century  some  of  the  strongest  minds 
have  regarded  such  speculation  as  subversive  of  Philosophy, 
Morals,  and  general  well-being. 

Nevertheless,  the  intellectual  habits  which  had  bred  those 
speculations  were  so  deep-seated  that  most  of  our  contempo- 
rary philosophers  have  inherited  more  of  them  than  they 
realize,  and  affect  to  ignore  Spencer  even  while  they  habitually 
use  his  terms,  and  test  all  things  by  principles  which,  though 
faintly  appearing  as  guesses  from  the  beginning  of  philosophy, 
were  first  demonstrated  as  facts  in  mind,  morals  and  society  by 
him :  indeed  so  much  of  his  work  has  got  into  the  very  air  that 
everybody,  according  to  capacity,  breathes  in  his  principles, 
often  without  realizing  whence  they  came. 

This  ignorant,  not  to  say  ungrateful,  attitude  of  many 
contemporaries  regarding  Spencer,  is  partly  due  to  the  brain 
evolved  on  the  old  philosophy  being  in  many  ways  imperme- 
able to  the  new.  But  it  is  also  due,  and  perhaps  in  a  greater 
degree,  to  Spencer  having  poured  out  the  child  with  the 
bath;  while  insisting  on  the  consciousness  of  the  Beyond,  and 
not  denying,  though  not  asserting,  the  Hereafter,  he  rigidly 
refrains  from  any  speculation  regarding  the  details  of  eithei; 
and  what  little  light  he  flashes  toward  both,  is  brief  and  cold 
and  dry.  Though  his  daily  walk  and  conversation  were  very 
much  informed  by  the  esthetic  side  of  Nature,  his  philosophy 
was  very  little ;  and  as  it  offers  none  of  the  beautiful  assump- 
tions in  which  men  have  so  long  delighted,  and  deals  very 
little  in  poetry,  except  as  its  immensities  are  poetic,  people 
who  cannot  supply  its  poetical  implications  for  themselves, 
are  apt  to  reject  it  as  bare  and  arid.  But  now  comes  along 
M.  Bergson  and  covers  the  colossal  structure  with  flowers — a 
task  for  which  the  giant  who  reared  it  was  not  fitted.  When 
I  said  this  to  M.  Bergson,  he  supplemented  it  with  one  of  his 


Ch.  VI]  Unknown  and  Unknowable  77 

inimitable  touches — "I  try  to  show  how  flowers  inevitably 
grow  out  of  it." 

It  is  the  proverbial  fate  of  genius  to  have  to  make  its  own 
constituency ;  and  while,  in  our  day,  that  fate  is  not  as  heavy 
as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Socrates  and  Christ,  the  work  against 
habit  and  heredity  is  still  hard  and  slow.  It  must  be  rhythmic 
too,  as  Spencer  was  the  first  clearly  to  demonstrate.  All  these 
things  make  it  easy  to  understand  how,  in  spite  of  the  revolu- 
tion wrought  in  philosophy  by  him,  in  spite  of  the  contempo- 
rary spread  of  his  doctrines  over  Europe,  America,  India,  and 
Japan,  there  has  been  a  reaction  since  his  death — a  reaction 
even  among  men  who  have  for  their  main  stock  in  trade,  how- 
ever unconsciously  accumulated  and  assorted,  the  principles 
that  Spencer  first  clearly  established,  and  even  the  terminology 
that  he  mainly  created. 

While  the  principal  cause  of  this  superficial  and  ignorant 
unconsciousness  of  Spencer's  influence  has  undoubtedly  been 
his  refusal  to  pander  to  the  appetite  for  transcendental  spec- 
ulation, he  yet  provided  the  word  Unknowable  with  a  capital 
U,  which  lifted  it  from  a  negation  into  an  assertion,  and 
gave  us  a  new  word  for  something  beyond  the  little  contents 
of  our  consciousness,  to  believe  in  and  lift  our  emotions 
toward. 

But  why  doesn't  the  word  Unknown  answer  the  same  pur- 
pose? As  a  negation,  Unknowable  is  nothing  but  a  truism: 
it  cannot  mean  more  than  unknowable  in  the  present  state 
of  our  knowledge,  and  that  is  a  matter  of  course:  for  when 
any  item  of  the  unknown  becomes  known,  the  state  of  our 
knowledge  is  changed.  And  to  assert  that  no  matter  how 
many  items  become  known,  there  will  still  remain  an  unknown 
residuum,  and  therefore  that  there  must  ever  be  an  Un- 
knowable, is  to  make  one  of  those  assertions  involving  the 
pseud-idea  of  "infinity,"  in  which  the  pre-Spencerian  phil- 
osophy did  its  reasonings  in  circles,  and  which  it  is  one  of 
the  first  principles  of  scientific  philosophy  to  avoid.  If, 
again,  the  word  means  that  the  number  of  things  not  now 
known  is  greater  than  can  be  learned  while  our  race  lasts, 
it  rises  from  a  truism  or  a  pseud-idea,  into  a  guess,  but 
only  a  guess,  even  if  one  with  which  most  men  would  agree. 


78  Some  Ethical  Aspects  of  Evolution         [Bk.  I 

But  to  assert  that  beyond  our  experience  and  knowledge 
there  is  presumably  an  immensity  of  truth  and  beauty  and 
happiness,  beside  which  our  knowledge  is  as  nothing,  is  only 
to  assert  what  we  have  almost  as  much  reason  to  believe 
from  our  experience,  as  we  have  to  believe  the  experience 
itself.  And  we  have  nearly  the  same  reason  to  believe  also 
that  we,  or  at  least  our  descendants,  will  have  an  increasing 
share  in  that  transcendent  beatitude.  Regarding  our  own 
chances,  some  guesses  will  be  ventured  in  later  pages.  I 
say  guesses :  for  when,  as  was  the  fashion  with  our  ancestors, 
such  speculations  assume  the  certainty  that  we  now  seldom 
attribute  to  anything  but  hypothesis  checked  by  verification, 
they  have  their  dangers. 

To  the  universe  which  transcends  phenomena,  the  name 
transcendent  naturally  has  been  applied.  Of  course  more 
nonsense  has  been  talked  about  it  than  any  other  subject; 
and  in  spite  of  the  best  intentions,  I  probably  have  talked 
my  share,  and  shall  probably  talk  some  more. 

The  term  connotes  two  ideas  (a)  the  unknown  residuum  of 
cause,  etc.,  behind  phenomena;  (6)  the  portion  of  the  universe 
whence  we  have  as  yet  received  no  phenomena.  Despite 
Transcendentalism  being  a  jaw-breaking  term,  it  cut  a  great 
figure  on  Boston  Sundays  a  couple  of  generations  ago ;  but  for 
everyday  use  in  our  time,  The  Unknown  might  serve  better. 

The  Spiritual  World  is  of  course  another  term  for  the 
same  thing,  at  least  for  its  psychic  side,  if  you  wish  to 
draw  a  distinction  which  to  me  grows  more  and  more  shadowy 
every  day.  When  savages  have  had  anything  come  to  them 
from  their  Unknown,  even  if  it  were  but  a  bullet  from  a 
musket,  they  have  called  it  the  work  of  spirits,  and  a  large 
portion  of  civilized  mankind  does  not  materially  differ  from 
them  to-day.  That  world,  being  Unknown,  however,  does 
not  quite  justify  Spencer  in  calling  it  Unknowable,  though 
we  may  be  justified  in  spelling  both  with  capitals.  And 
our  limited  intellects  are  apt  to  get  on  high  horses  and 
say  that,  in  any  event,  it  must  be  Unknowable  in  its  totality, 
just  as  if  the  word  totality  in  the  connection  were  an  idea, 
instead  of  a  pseud-idea. 

As  to  the  universe  which  transcends  our  knowledge,  the 


Ch.  VI]      No  Magic  Keys.    Uses  of  Speculation  79 

world's  records  abound  in  confident  expectations  of  finding 
"keys"  and  "passwords"  that  shall  at  a  flash  make  all 
the  unknown,  known ;  and  no  end  of  "  systems  "  of  "  know- 
ledge "  of  it  have  been  built,  which  were,  of  course,  nothing 
but  card-houses  with  words  on  the  cards.  The  only  stable 
knowledge  has  been  built  of  classified  phenomena;  and  the 
only  progress  into  the  transcendent  universe  has  been  step 
by  step.  Thus  only  has  some  of  the  universe  which  was  at 
first  all  transcendent  to  our  ancestors,  become  known  to  us, 
and  thus  only,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  will  some  of  the  universe 
which  is  transcendent  to  us,  become  known  to  our  de- 
scendants. 

But  speculation  concerning  the  transcendent  universe,  when 
honestly  regarded  as  speculation,  is  justified  by  several  con- 
siderations : 

I.  We  never  know  when  a  speculation  on  the  transcendent 
universe  is  going  to  bring  a  valuable  slice  of  it  into  o«r 
Universe — into  the  Known  (capitals  have  their  uses).    The 
speculation  of  to-day  points  the  way  to  the  demonstration 
of  to-morrow — sometimes. 

II.  Characteristics  pervade  phenomena  which  may  be  held 
to  justify,  though  they  may  not  strictly  verify,  some  classes 
of  conclusions  regarding  their  cause.     For  instance,  the  general 
prevalence  of  beauty  and  happiness  obvious  to  a  healthy  mind, 
prove  the  cause  beneficent,  and  therefore  give  much  reason  to 
believe  that  it  is  benevolent.    Such  beliefs,  however,  must  be 
held  and  enforced  only  in  proportion  to  their  verifiability. 

III.  Some  speculations  beyond  phenomena  have  verifiable 
advantages — they  unquestionably  enlarge  and  intensify  our 
interests;  and  beyond  possible  waste  of  time,  which  they 
share  with  all  speculation  and  even  all  experiment,  their  only 
disadvantages  arise  when  they  impose  rules  of  conduct  whose 
advantages  are  unverifiable. 

IV.  What  is  more,  we  must  speculate,  at  least  on  the  re- 
lations of  the  uncorrelated  phenomena  that  are  constantly 
coming  from  the  transcendental  universe  toward  the  universe 
of  knowledge — that  constitute  the  borderland  of  knowledge. 

But  while  science  has  been  in  the  very  act  of  demonstrating 
the  legitimacy  of  guarded  speculation,  many  have  said  that 


80  Some  Ethical  Aspects  of  Evolution          [Bk.  I 

science  was  killing  the  imagination.  Others,  however,  insist 
that  science  has  been  the  healthiest  stimulus  of  the  imagina- 
tion, not  only  in  hypothesis,  but  even  in  poetry :  certainly  it 
gave  a  new  and  very  deep  note  to  the  poetry  of  Tennyson.  But 
equally  certainly,  it  has  diverted  the  imagination  into  new 
channels,  and  these  have  not  yet  become  so  familiar — so  much 
a  part  of  the  general  consciousness  which  responds  to  poetry, 
as  to  inspire  it  habitually  and  powerfully.  Poetry  does  not 
come  from,  or  appeal  to,  deep  learning  or  high  ingenuity, 
but  to  the  common  emotions  of  mankind.  True  there  is 
poetry  in  the  spectroscope  showing  us  the  composition  of 
the  farthest  visible  star,  there  is  poetry  in  the  fact  that  what 
we  call  that  star  may  be  only  light  that  has  reached  us  from 
the  star  since  it  was  burnt  out  and  dead;  but  such  facts, 
although  science  is  pouring  them  upon  the  poet  in  profusion, 
are  as  yet  so  unfamiliar  that  he  responds  not  so  much  by 
feeling  their  emotional  implications  and  turning  them  into 
poetry,  as  by  efforts  to  comprehend  them. 

Poetry  does  not  go  hand  in  hand  with  knowledge,  but  skips 
all  along  the  way,  sometimes  following  in  the  paths  which 
knowledge  has  opened  and  smoothed,  sometimes  going  ahead, 
and  throwing  its  vague  lights  into  mysteries  yet  to  be 
explored. 


BOOK  II 
UNCORHELATED   KNOWLEDGE 

CHAPTER  VII 
INTRODUCTION 

WHAT  do  we  mean  when  we  say  we  know  a  thing?  That 
we  recollect  enough  of  its  qualities  to  be  sure  that  when  we 
find  an  object  possessing  those  we  recollect,  and  no  others 
inconsistent  with  them,  it  will  be  the  thing  we  know,  or 
one  like  it — one  in  the  class  of  things  with  which  our  recol- 
lections correlate  it.  Far  off  at  the  edge  of  the  woods  I 
see  a  moving  object.  I  cannot  make  out  another  quality.  I 
simply  correlate  it  with  the  class  moving  objects.  Otherwise 
I  don't  know  what  it  is.  It  emerges  from  the  shadow,  and 
I  see  that  I  can  correlate  it  with  the  smaller  class  of  dark 
moving  objects.  A  little  nearer,  and  I  am  able  to  correlate 
it  with  the  still  smaller  class  of  brown  moving  objects,  but 
I  don't  know  how  high  the  grass  around  it  is,  and  don't  know 
whether  to  correlate  it  with  cattle  or  deer  or  dogs.  It  begins 
to  run  toward  me,  and  its  motion  correlates  it  with  dogs. 
Its  coming  toward  the  house  tends  to  correlate  it  with  my 
dogs.  That,  taken  in  connection  with  its  color,  narrows  the 
correlation  down  to  collies:  the  color  excludes  it  from  the 
class  Scottish  terriers  to  which  my  third  dog  belongs.  But 
among  collies,  I  can't  tell  before  it  draws  nearer  whether 
it  is  Laddie  or  his  son  Shep;  but  as  he  runs  up  to  me,  his 
very  long  hair  and  comparative  lack  of  white,  and  large 
head,  and  affection  for  me,  correlate  him  with  my  recollections 
of  Laddie,  and  I  "know"  him.  Now  here  are  successively 
the  qualities  visibility,  motion,  color,  brown  color,  the  addi- 
tional mass  of  visible  qualities  that  go  to  make  up  dog, 
the  invisible  one  of  tendency  to  come  to  my  home,  which 
81 


82  Introduction  to  Boole  II  [Bk.  II 

marks  it  as  my  dog,  the  specific  colors  which  mark  it  as  my 
collie  dog,  and  the  long  hair  and  preponderance  of  brown 
and  big  head,  which  mark  it  as  Laddie. 

Dear  old  fellow !  He  was  literally  old,  and  within  a  month 
of  my  writing  that  passage,  he  fell  miserably  and  incurably 
ill,  and  we  had  to  chloroform  him,  which  is  more  than  we 
would  do  for  each  other  under  similar  circumstances.  Let 
the  passage  stand  as  a  monument,  however  perishable,  to 
as  loving  and  constant  a  friend  as  I  ever  had. 

Now  when  I  say  I  "  knew "  this  dear  dog,  it  is  because 
the  whole  mass  of  qualities  enumerated  were  correlated  with 
my  recollections  of  a  corresponding  mass  of  qualities  which 
constituted  Laddie.  Had  they  not  been,  I  should  have  had 
to  say,  if  asked :  "  I  don't  know  the  dog."  All  the  knowledge 
up  to  that  point  would  have  been  uncorrelated  with  the 
knowledge  essential  to  my  knowing  him. 

Now  when  certain  people  are  present,  there  are  crackings 
and  tappings  going  on  around  the  room.  There  is  nothing 
visible  or  discoverable  to  account  for  them ;  so  we  can't  safely 
correlate  them  with  mechanically  caused  noises.  They  are 
too  frequent  to  be  correlated  with  the  shrinkage  of  wood- 
work. Jones,  who  has  heard  similar  noises  before,  correlates 
them  with  certain  qualities  he  has  experienced  before,  and 
says  he  "knows"  them — that  they  are  noises  caused  by 
spirits.  I  on  the  other  hand  having  never  heard  anything  of 
the  kind,  and  having  nothing  to  correlate  the  noises  with,  don't 
"  know  "  what  they  are :  to  me  it  is  uncorrelated  knowledge. 
And  as,  so  far,  Jones  and  the  rest  of  us  know  precious, 
little,  if  anything,  about  "  spirits,"  I  suspect  that  in  some 
important  respects  it  is  really  uncorrelated  knowledge  with 
him.  Similarly  I  see  tables  move  in  presence  of  certain 
people  who  touch  them  very  lightly  or  not  at  all :  so  I  cannot 
correlate  the  moving  power  with  muscular  force.  Nor  can 
I  correlate  it  with  electricity:  for  electricity  doesn't  act 
on  wood;  or  with  anything  else  I  know.  So  for  me,  the 
little  knowledge  I  have  of  it  is  correlated  with  so  little  of 
what  I  know  about  modes  of  force,  that  I  can't  say  that  I 
"know"  it.  We  say  we  know  things,  when  what  we  know 
about  them  is  correlated  with  what  else  we  know,  and  the 


Ch.  VII]          How  Knowledge  Takes  Shape  83 

wider  and  closer  the  correlation,  the  better  we  know  the 
things. 

Now  as  Jones  thinks  he  knows  all  about  spirits,  and  that 
what  he  knows  about  this  force  correlates  itself  with  what 
he  knows  about  spirits,  and  that  therefore  the  force  comes 
from  spirits,  there  is  no  use  in  my  telling  him  that  it  comes 
from  the  medium  because  the  medium  is  as  tired  as  if  he  had 
done  the  work  with  his  muscles. 

Because  the  noise  takes  place  only  when  the  medium  is 
present,  I  can  only  correlate  it  with  human  forces,  though 
with  none  I  had  known  before.  Jones  prefers  spirits. 

Well,  we  have  a  good  deal  of  such  uncorrelated  or  half- 
correlated  or  miscorrelated  knowledge — it  makes  the  border- 
land between  knowledge  and  conjecture,  and  consists  largely 
of  both. 

As  to  knowledge  and  possible  knowledge,  we  are  each  in 
the  midst  of  two  concentric  spheres — not  perfect  ones,  but 
with  irregular  surfaces.  Of  course  the  spheres  of  no  two 
men  are  alike.  Each  lives  in  one  consisting  of  what  he  knows, 
or  thinks  he  knows — of  his  sensed  and  correlated  knowledge. 
This  shades  into  an  including  sphere  made  up  of  scraps 
of  uncorrelated  knowledge  but  partly  sensed,  of  intuitions 
and  impressions — some  of  them  little  more  than  emotions — 
many  of  them,  however,  undoubtedly  the  germs  of  knowledge 
yet  to  mature.  Then,  we  have  every  reason  to  believe,  beyond 
this  sphere  must  be  a  measureless  infinity  outside  of  not  only 
our  sensed  and  partly-sensed  knowledge,  but  of  our  intuitions 
and  emotions. 

Most  of  the  rest  of  our  book  will  relate  to  the  including 
sphere,  and  will  consist  largely  of  suggestions  for  correlating 
its  vague  knowledge  with  that  of  the  sphere  of  things  we  know. 

The  borders  of  the  sphere  of  knowledge  and  the  sphere 
surrounding  knowledge,  overlap  in  both  experience  and  feel- 
ing, or  intuition,  or  whatever  you  see  fit  to  call  it.  When 
some  of  our  ancestors  attained  a  general  sense  of  light,  they 
must  have  had  some  vague  impressions  which  have  developed 
into  our  sense  of  color;  so  when  they  got  as  far  as  a  clear 
general  impression  of  sound,  they  must  have  had  vague  im- 
pressions of  what  are  to  us  pitch  and  timbre  and  even  har- 


'84  Introduction  to  Book  II  [Bk.  II 

mony  and  discord.  Now  we,  in  experiences  that  exercise 
our  present  faculties  to  the  full — before  great  aspects  of 
Nature,  or  great  pictures,  statuary,  or  music,  are  filled  with 
exaltations  of  "we  know  not  what"  beyond  our  distinct 
sensations.  Similarly  in  the  laboratory,  the  workshop,  the 
study,  the  forum,  even  the  market-place,  something  just  be- 
yond always  invites  us,  and  in  overtaking  it,  we  become 
vaguely  and  tantalizingly  conscious  of  yet  more  beyond. 

This  "beyond"  presents  itself  partly  in  open  questions 
solvable  by  our  present  clearly-evolved  faculties,  and  partly 
through  faculties  but  little  evolved  and  little  understood. 
The  groups  of  course  merge  into  each  other,  as  we  have  so 
often  had  occasion  to  notice  that  subdivisions  do.  In  the 
first  group  are  the  phenomena  whose  genuineness  nobody 
doubts,  but  that  are  not  yet  correlated,  like  the  Aurora 
Borealis ;  or  phenomena  not  yet  actually  witnessed,  but  clearly 
ascertained,  like  the  Pole  before  Peary,  or  Neptune  when 
Adams  and  Leverrier  had  told  where  it  was,  but  no  man  had 
seen  it.  At  these  questions  explorers  and  scientific  men  in 
general  are  working,  with  faculties  like  those  of  other  men, 
though  often  superior  in  degree. 

In  addition  to  this  physical  group  of  uncorrelated  know- 
ledge, there  is  a  similarly  uncorrelated  psychical  group  of 
phenomena  considerably  known  and  accepted,  which  includes 
visions — sleeping  and  waking — somnambulism,  and  both  the 
foregoing  under  hypnotism  and  suggestion. 

But  beyond  that  group  of  phenomena  well  known  but 
poorly  correlated,  is  a  mass  of  phenomena  newly  and  rarely 
observed  which  are  as  yet  so  strange  that  they  are  generally 
attributed  to  illusion  or  deceit.  These  phenomena  are  in 
the  borderland  of  faculty,  as  well  as  in  the  borderland  of 
knowledge.  They  depend  upon  human  powers  whose  exist- 
ence is  but  lately  suspected,  and  still  generally  doubted,  and 
which,  if  they  exist,  are  the  very  latest  and  rarest  fruits 
of  evolution. 

The  fact  that  people  vary  enormously  in  their  powers,  is 
obvious  to  all  but  the  immense  majority  having  inferior 
powers.  That  great  ability  of  any  kind  is  rare,  is  probably 
a  corollary  of  evolution  (though  I  have  not  yet  happened 


Ch.  VII]       Differences  in  Men's  Sensibilities  85 

on  any  demonstration  of  such  a  connection)  :  so  it  is  to  be 
expected  that  new  powers  should  be  manifested  by  but  few 
people.  That  such  is  the  case  regarding  certain  powers  to 
be  described  later,  has  been  used  as  an  argument  against 
their  genuineness.  There  may  be  other  arguments  against 
it  that  are  good,  but  this  one,  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  certainly 
for  it. 

Intellectually  and  emotionally  men  differ  among  themselves 
more  widely  than  any  other  genus  of  animals.  I  don't  mean 
merely  the  difference  between  ordinary  men  and  Beethovens 
and  Shaksperes,  who  have  faculties  in  high  degree  which 
almost  everybody  has  in  perceptible  degree,  but  I  mean  that 
some  men  seem  to  possess  faculties  which  most  men  seem 
not  to  possess  at  all.  One  of  these  most  marked  differences 
is  in  the  premonitions  of  the  unsensed  universe.  Even  on 
the  emotional  side,  some  men  have  virtually  no  such  pre- 
monitions, while  they  illumine  the  faces  of  others  so  that 
you  can  often  pick  out  such  men  on  the  street.  Such  premo- 
nitions are  of  course  vague,  and  tend  to  become  fantastic — 
"such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of,"  and  in  the  efforts  to 
give  them  precision,  many  systems  have  been  built;  and 
too  often  those  not  built  in  the  laboratories,  have  fallen  to 
pieces  with  great  destruction  to  the  reasonable  faiths  that 
were  built  in  with  unreasonable  ones,  and  to  the  accompany- 
ing systems  of  morality.  In  truth,  so  far,  the  laboratory, 
the  observatory,  and  their  kindred  have  been  the  only  places 
of  permanently  successful  effort  to  increase  our  knowledge 
of  the  Beyond. 

But  in  the  laboratory  and  the  study,  feeling  the  Beyond 
is  greatly  "  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought." 
Yet  not  only  is  the  recognition  of  its  existence  a  commonplace 
of  healthy  mental  function,  but  emotional  relations  with  it 
often  seem  essential  to  a  worthy  and  symmetrical  personality. 
It  may  well  be  questioned  whether,  even  in  the  most  common- 
place and  humble  people  who  command  our  respect,  this  feel- 
ing is  not  always  very  definite.  Certainly  the  vast  majority 
of  them,  even  many  of  them  who  scoff  at  the  ordinary  mani- 
festations of  religion,  are  religious  in  their  way,  having  a 
fidelity  to  such  ideals  as  they  have,  that  rises  to  the  mystical. 

There  are  indeed  few  human  beings  who  are  not  some- 


86  Introduction  to  Book  11  [Bk.  II 

where,  somehow,  sometime,  exalted  by  this  mystical  com- 
munion. It  may  be  in  a  Gothic  cathedral  or  a  Methodist 
meeting-house,  or  in  the  chapel  where  the  brigand  prays  for 
success  in  his  expedition;  it  may  be  before  the  Matterhorn 
or  the  Sistine  Madonna ;  before  McAndrews's  engine  or  "  a 
weed's  plain  heart."  The  person  experiencing  it  may  be  a 
Saint  Francis  or  an  Uncle  Tom;  the  occasions  may  be  few 
in  a  life-time,  or  they  may  include  almost  every  conscious 
moment;  they  may  drive  out  of  life  almost  every  duty  and 
responsibility,  or  they  may  overcrowd  it  with  them,  and  in- 
tensify and  sanctify  them  all,  the  humblest  as  truly  as  the 
greatest.  But  where,  when,  how,  to  whom,  the  feeling  comes, 
it  comes  some  time  to  nearly  all;  and  whatever  its  name,  it 
is  a  recognition  of  something  beyond  what  we  know,  and 
greater  than  we  know. 

And  yet,  while  he  who  has  not  intensely  felt  his  oneness 
with  all  conscious  being,  has  not  felt  the  Best,  the  attempt 
to  live  entirely  in  this  feeling  has  on  the  whole  been  counter 
to  the  best  uses  of  life — narrowing,  enervating,  and  even 
bestializing.  While  mysticism  includes  the  roses  of  Saint 
Elizabeth,  it  also  includes  the  filth  of  Stylites,  and  the  un- 
natural ecstasies  of  the  celestial  marriage. 

But  by  no  means  all  the  persons  who  have  had  this  mystic 
sense  have  been  vagabonds  and  parasites.  Some  of  them  have 
left  work  of  inestimable  value,  though  of  the  value  of  much 
of  it  there  have  been  enormous  differences  of  opinion. 

James  in  his  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  quotes  with 
approval  from  Dr.  Bucke's  book  which  I  have  already  cited. 
It  contains  some  interesting  theories,  and  quite  interesting 
accounts  of  a  couple  of  dozen  people,  from  the  prophet 
Moses  to  Walt  Whitman,  who  have  attained  the  Cosmic  Con- 
sciousness, which  Dr.  Bucke  places  as  the  third  plane  in 
terrestrial  experience,  the  first  being  mere  consciousness  of  the 
environment,  which  beasts  share  with  us ;  the  second,  the  ordi- 
nary human  subjective  consciousness,  the  name  of  which  in 
our  translation  from  German  philosophy  is  very  unfortunate — 
"  self  consciousness  "  being  well  established  as  signifying  awk- 
ward feelings  in  society. 

Dr.  Bucke  seems  to  think  that  Cosmic  Consciousness — the 
feeling  of  oneness  with  Nature — our  forces,  its  forces;  our 


Ch.  VII]  Cosmic  Consciousness  87 

thoughts,  its  thoughts;  our  life,  its  life,  universal  and  eter- 
nal ;  our  consciousness,  all  consciousness — is  the  endowment  of 
but  a  few  favored  beings,  and  that  they  generally  get  it  at  the 
culminating  time  of  life,  between  thirty-five  and  forty-five,  by 
some  such  knock-down  experience  as  St.  Paul's,  and  gener- 
ally accompanied  with  an  apparent  blaze  of  glory,  subjective 
at  least.  I  suspect  that  more  people  are*  blest  with  it  than  he 
supposes.  He  says  himself  that  it  is  not  necessarily  accom- 
panied with  any  extraordinary  general  capacities.  I  (anybody 
writing  of  these  things,  ought  to  contribute  what  he  can  to 
the  sum  of  experience) — I  cannot  remember  when  I  did  not 
have  the  rudiments  of  it  before  great  scenery  and  great  music, 
and  it  culminated  in  me  ten  years  before  the  usual  period  he 
assigns.  It  came  with  the  blaze  of  light,  but  the  light  was 
from  the  natural  sunset  which,  however,  seemed  that  evening 
not  confined  to  the  far-off  clouds,  but  to  pervade  the  whole 
atmosphere  and  all  other  things,  including  me,  and  to  be  per- 
vaded by  energy  and  mind  and  sympathy.  Dr.  Bucke  says, 
rightly,  I  think,  that  the  influence  lasts  in  its  fullness  but 
minutes,  seldom  hours,  but  is  never  lost,  and  is  sometimes 
renewed  and  reinforced.  But  I  wouldn't  advise  anybody 
wishing  to  retain  it  vividly,  to  plunge  into  the  competition  of 
American  business ;  and  even  into  studies  of  practical  affairs 
— economics,  politics,  and  the  like:  I  suspect  one  has  to  keep 
his  eyes  pretty  wide  open  to  be  fairly  conscious  of  any 
Cosmic  Relations  that  may  inhere  in  such  interests. 

It  is  not  during  the  comparatively  brief  period  covered  by 
human  records,  that  most  of  the  impressions  that  have  been 
in  advance  of  knowledge  during  all  evolution,  have  oeen 
overtaken  by  the  understanding.  With  the  exception  of 
some  indication  that  the  color  sense  has  developed  some- 
what since  Homer,  our  recognized  senses  and  physical  powers 
generally  seem  about  the  same  in  number  and  quality  that 
they  were  at  the  earliest  period  we  know  of.  Yet  the  pro- 
gress of  mankind  as  we  generally  know  it,  has  been  some- 
what in  the  development  of  them.  Everybody  who  sees  much 
of  ordinary  laborers,  knows  that  the  best  class  of  mankind 
has  gone  past  the  vast  majority  even  in  the  ordinary  senses  of 
sight  and  hearing. 


88  Introduction  to  Boole  II  [Bk.  II 

But  in  the  nineteenth  century,  especially  late  in  it,  began 
to  appear  indications  that,  in  a  few  exceptional  individuals, 
evolution  had  brought  the  human  organism  to  a  point  where 
it  exercises  modes  of  force  before  little  known,  if  at  all; 
manifests  a  complexity  of  personality  and  relations  to  other 
personalities,  before  unsuspected ;  and  receives  knowledge  not 
only  through  new  channels,  but  of  a  new  kind.  Yet  these 
new  faculties  seem  to  belong  in  an  old  range  beginning  in 
knowing  good  people  from  bad  "  by  instinct/'  or  knowing  when 
there's  an  unseen  cat  in  the  room,  and  now  extending  up  to 
seeing  things  without  using  eyes,  hearing  things  without  using 
ears,  and  getting,  in  other  ways  we  don't  know,  impressions  of 
the  unsensed  universe,  including  what  appear  to  be  innumerable 
personalities.  These  impressions  may  come  from  the  recollec- 
tions (often  unexpressed  and  even  unconscious,  so  far  as  we 
know)  of  other  people,  or  from  discarnate  intelligences,  or  in 
some  other  way  that  we  cannot  conjecture  much  more  than 
a  worm  with  only  color  pigments  can  conjecture  the  visions 
of  Turner. 

In  the  presence  of  the  latest  of  these  phenomena,  a  man  is 
like  such  a  worm  exposing  his  pigment-spot  to  the  reflected 
lights  which  make  our  visible  universe ;  or  like  an  insect  with 
a  rudimentary  sense  of  hearing,  fluttering  in  a  hall  where  an 
orchestra  is  playing.  They  must  have  some  stirrings  which 
hold  about  the  same  place  in  their  interests  and  sensations, 
that  our  wonderings  do  before  these  matters  of  which  our 
senses  give  us  such  faint  inklings,  and  among  which  our 
curiosities  do  such  clumsy  fumblings. 

In  proceeding  to  the  study  of  the  borderland  of  knowledge, 
and  to  some  conjectures  of  what  may  lie  beyond  the  border- 
land, I  shall  attempt  nothing  but  the  study  of  phenomena,  and 
a  few  cautious  inferences  from  them.  I  lack  the  inclination 
and,  I  suspect,  the  capacity,  to  take  a  lot  of  words  like 
"infinite,"  "eternal,"  "absolute,"  which  are  simply  denials 
of  knowledge,  or  "  omniscience,"  "  omnipresence,"  "  omnipo- 
tence," which  are  assertions  of  something  the  human  mind 
cannot  grasp,  and  by  keeping  such  words  a  long  time  in  the 
air,  as  jugglers  do  their  balls,  construct  a  system  of  Philoso- 
phy. Previous  to  Spencer,  and  to  some  extent  since,  thinkers 


Ch.  VII]  Guesswork  and  Philosophy  89 

have  done  so  much  of  this  that,  despite  suggestions  like  Kant's 
of  the  cosmogony,  most  of  their  work  simply  doubled  on  itself 
in  circles,  its  predicates  being  merely  its  subjects  in  different 
phraseology;  and  its  conclusions,  like  its  premises,  pseud- 
ideas  with  no  possibilities  of  forecast  in  them. 

And  yet  for  three  thousand  years  the  imagination  has  been 
the  main  instrument  of  philosophy,  and  curiosity  beyond 
phenomena  its  main  motive — both  to  such  an  extent  that 
minds  devoted  to  the  subject  have,  both  by  habit  and  sur- 
vival, been  so  shaped  for  such  vaporings,  that  it  is  still  rare 
to  find  a  mind  inclined  to  philosophy  which  does  not  habitu- 
ally seek  those  mists.  And  it  is  equally  rare  to  find  a  mind 
so  open  to  the  implications  of  evolution  as  to  be  guided 
by  them  in  all  its  speculations,  and  thus  saved  from  clueless 
wandering  in  the  fog. 

The  more  I  read  of  philosophy  and  histories  of  philosophy, 
the  harder  I  find  it  to  understand  why  men  now  trouble 
themselves  with  the  guesses  that  were  made  on  the  material 
thinkers  had  before  the  recent  knowledge  of  the  physiology  of 
the  senses,  and  the  persistence  of  force,  and  its  relations  to 
nerve  function.  Until  those  discoveries,  men  certainly  knew 
nothing  worth  considering  regarding  the  fundamental  question 
of  the  relations  of  mind  and  matter:  so  there  could  be  no 
enduring  basis  for  psychological  speculation,  nor  the  elements 
of  a  substantial  organic  body  of  doctrine  to  bear  the  name 
Philosophy.  There  was  nothing  but  a  chaotic  fluttering  mass 
of  contradictions,  without  a  single  established  principle  on 
which  to  base  a  rule  of  conduct,  much  less  any  coherent 
body  of  ethics  founded  on  what  is,  for  us,  universal  law. 
Fragmentary  rules  of  conduct  had  been  derived  from  ex- 
perience, and  embodied  by  men  of  genius  in  immortal  phrases ; 
and  those  rules  had  been  in  various  degrees  wrought  into 
sporadic  and  usually  fleeting  systems ;  but  the  foundation  for 
any  universal  and  universally  acknowledged  systems  of  psy- 
chology, philosophy,  or  ethics,  was  unknown. 

I  shall  therefore  not  follow  fashions  still  too  current,  by 
encumbering  what  I  have  to  say  with  many  citations  of 
guesses  that  were  .made  before  our  recent  knowledge.  Among 
the  good  reasons  why  I  don't  cite  them,  is  that  I  know,  and 
care  to  know,  very  little  about  them.  Even  many  guesses 


90  Introduction  to  Book  II  [Bk.  II 

that  were  made  so  recently  as  just  before  the  accumulation 
and  verification  of  facts  by  the  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search, are  often  too  antiquated  for  our  present  purpose. 

I  shall  try,  therefore,  to  make  my  examination  of  the 
subjects  which  tempt  to  the  old-fashioned  philosophy  as 
free  from  it  as  I  can.  But  that  is  no  easy  task :  for  everything 
we  know— each  science  into  which  we  have  classified  it,  shades 
off  somewhere  into  the  unknown,  and  much  that  we  have  to 
deal  with  has  hardly  emerged  from  it.  The  new  questions 
are  tangled  up  with  questions  older  than  our  records,  but 
which  have  had  little  scientific  consideration  until  some  thirty 
years  ago,  and  have  not  had  as  much  since  as  their  importance 
may  be  found  to  justify.  They  have,  however,  to  some  ex- 
tent, been  named  and  classified,  which  is  the  beginning  of 
science,  and  are,  some  of  them  at  least,  being  slowly  cor- 
related with  our  present  knowledge. 

Certainties  have  a  tendency  to  grow  commonplace.  Even 
mountains  and  oceans  satisfy  for  but  a  time :  so  the  flights  of 
great  and  venturesome  souls  tend  to  the  shifting  skies  of  un- 
verified beliefs.  These  are  sometimes  misleading,  but  often 
inspiring,  and  it  is  one  of  the  highest  of  intellectual  delights 
to  watch  them  through  history,  gradually  becoming  brighter 
and  more  definite;  and  helping  make  them  so  is  perhaps  the 
highest  of  intellectual  functions. 


BOOK  II  — PART  I 
TELEKINESIS 

CHAPTER  VIII 
MOLAR  TELEKINESIS 

WHILE  the  past  half-century  seems  to  have  shown  us  more 
of  our  Cosmic  Relations,  and  to  have  widened  them  more, 
than  all  preceding  time  since  man  was  far  enough  evolved 
to  write  his  history,  most  attention  has  been  attracted  by 
the  revolutionary  discoveries  affecting  transportation  of  mat- 
ter, and  the  communication  of  ordinary  intelligence  by 
molecular  forces  of  which  we  had  long  had  some  sort  of  con- 
ception. Of  late,  however,  much  attention  has  been  devoted 
to  new  faculties  and  new  means  of  communication. 

Included  with  the  phenomena  out  of  which  knowledge  is 
built,  is  the  evolution  of  the  senses  which  take  cognizance 
of  those  phenomena ;  and  during  the  last  half-century  much 
attention  has  been  drawn  to  indications  of  an  evolution  of 
senses,  or  sensibilities,  that  take  cognizance  of  phenomena 
before  unknown,  and  that  may  perhaps  surpass  in  importance 
(if  comparisons  can  reasonably  be  made)  any  of  the  avenues 
of  knowledge  previously  known. 

But  in  passing  to  the  consideration  of  these  matters,  let 
it  be  distinctly  understood  that  we  are  to  consider  only  phe- 
nomena, and  not  mere  speculations  on  assumptions  regard- 
ing the  transcendent  world,  which  have  made  the  bulk  of 
what  has  been  called  philosophy.  I  shall  deal  freely  in  pro- 
visional assumptions,  but  only  regarding  phenomena,  and 
I  shall  not  use  such  words  as  infinite  and  eternal  and  un- 
conditioned, in  any  other  sense  than  as  indicating  directions, 
regarding  whose  goals  I  shall  not  even  knowingly  make  as- 
sumptions. To  cut  it  short :  beyond  this  point,  this  book,  so 
91 


92  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

far  as  it  is  not  record  of  fact,  is  mainly  candid  guesswork 
regarding  fact. 

Yet  in  being  so,  it  admits  no  affiliation  with  the  famous 
masses  of  guesswork  which  announce  themselves  as  established 
truth. 

On  the  borderland  of  our  knowledge,  we  shall  meet  many 
strange  and  startling  statements,  among  which  there  is  un- 
doubtedly a  substantial  mass  of  fact,  but  just  what  that  mass 
is,  we  shall  find  hard  to  determine,  and  after  we  have  done 
our  best  to  separate  it,  we  shall  find  it  equally  hard  to  cor- 
relate it  with  our  established  knowledge.  To  the  statements, 
the  winnowing,  and  the  correlation,  we  will  now  apply  our- 
selves. And  let  us  do  so  with  the  hope  that  we  may  find  some 
new  inspirations  to  lift  us,  if  not  back  to  our  outworn  creeds, 
at  least  to  all  in  them  which  promoted  our  higher  interests, 
and  perhaps  to  more  enlightened  creeds  promoting  interests 
higher  still. 

Early  writings  and  traditions  abound  in  accounts  of  magical 
control  of  nature,  mysterious  visions,  and  spiritual  communi- 
cations and  possessions,  which  may  have  been  partly  the 
results  of  some  rudimentary  senses  or  susceptibilities  akin 
to  those  which,  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  were 
manifested  in  America,  and  since  have  appeared  sporadically 
through  Europe. 

At  first  persons  occupying  the  two  extremes  of  mental  habit 
— theologians  and  scientists,  alike  generally  scouted  these 
alleged  phenomena  as  fraudulent,  and  refused  even  to  investi- 
gate them.  But  the  genuineness  of  some  of  them  may  now 
be  considered  established  in  the  scientific  world,  and  that  of 
several  others  held  fairly  open  to  consideration. 

The  phenomena  are  both  physical  and  psychical,  though 
with  some  mysterious  connection  between  them:  for  most 
persons,  though  not  all,  manifesting  one  group,  have  mani- 
fested the  other. 

The  physical  group  is  in  the  powers  (I)  to  move  material 
objects  by  some  extra-muscular  force,  and  often  without  con- 
tact; (II)  to  pass  matter  through  matter  without  disintegrat- 
ing either  mass;  (III)  to  cause  motion  in  the  air  without  any 
obvious  agency.  The  aforesaid  changes  effected  by  the  mys- 
terious force  or  forces  are  molar.  It  is  claimed  that  there  are 


Ch.  VIII]  Kinds  of  Telekinesis  93 

powers  to  produce  also  the  following  which  are  molecular: 
(IV)  when  near  to  certain  objects — notably  running  water  and 
gold,  and  probably  some  others  yet  to  be  ascertained — to 
establish  involuntarily  between  the  operator  and  the  object, 
some  sort  of  current  not  yet  named,  but  apparently  akin  to 
magnetism,  which  not  only  makes  the  operator  aware  of  the 
nearness  of  the  object,  but  causes  in  him  nervous  and  mus- 
cular reactions;  (V)  to  produce  sounds  from  tangible  objects 
and  from  the  air,  by  some  agency  as  yet  unknown;  (VI)  sim- 
ilarly to  produce  lights;  (VII)  also  changes  of  the  air's  tem- 
perature; (VIII)  also  evanescent  unmaterial  semblances  of 
material  objects. 

To  the  first  of  these  powers  is  now  generally  applied  the 
name  telekinesis.  The  tele,  however,  is  not  to  be  regarded  in 
the  frequent  sense  of  distant  from,  but  merely  as  not  in  contact 
with.  And  as  the  objects  concerned  in  all  of  the  eight  cate- 
gories are  not  in  contact  with  the  operator's  body,  we  may 
tentatively  consider  all  these  modes  of  force  as  telekinetic, 
though  as  more  is  known  about  them,  such  of  them  as  survive 
scrutiny  may  receive  separate  names. 

The  first  of  these  alleged  modes  of  force  I  have  seen  in 
action,  and  know  to  be  genuine.  There  is  plenty  of  honest 
testimony  to  the  rest ;  the  only  questions  arise  over  the  possi- 
bilities of  illusion.  The  testimony  to  the  fourth  ("  dowsing  ") 
and  fifth  (sound)  is  strong  enough  to  have  convinced  me. 
That  to  the  sixth  (light)  I  consider  in  some  cases  very  good, 
but  in  most  not  yet  convincing.  For  the  rest,  the  testimony 
does  not  seem  to  me  convincing,  perhaps  because  the  allega- 
tions are  so  improbable,  but  the  testimony  is  too  strong  to  be 
ignored. 

The  telekinetic  forces  ex  vi  termini  act  outside  the  body. 
The  following  forces  are  alleged  to  have  acted  through  the 
will  upon  the  body  itself.  I  venture  to  suggest  the  name 
autokinetic.  They  are  said  (I)  to  lift  the  body  independently 
of  any  known  agency;  (II)  to  resist  the  effects  of  heat;  (III) 
to  produce  stigmata  and  blisters.  The  testimony  to  the  third 
seems  convincing,  also  that  to  one  class  of  incidents  of  the 
second ;  to  the  first,  as  to  some  sorts  of  telekinesis,  it  is  not  as 
strong  as  the  great  improbability  requires,  and  yet  too  strong 
to  be  ignored. 


94  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

There  is  another  new  force  of  which  we  see  evidences  in 
the  activities  of  the  alleged  spiritual  mediums.  I  call  it 
psychokinesis.  It  will  be  described  in  due  course. 

The  uncorrelated  psychical  phenomena  we  will  consider  in 
Part  III  of  this  Book  II. 

I  am  fortunate  in  being  able  to  begin  an  account  of  teleki- 
nesis from  my  own  experience — one  which,  in  boyhood,  in- 
augurated an  interest  in  these  subjects  that  has  endured 
through  a  long  life. 

In  the  winter  of  1856-7  or  the  spring  of  1857,  on  a  Sunday 
afternoon,  I  was  one  of  a  dozen  or  so  of  the  pupils  of  General 
Russell's  school  in  New  Haven  who  were  loafing  in  one  of 
the  recitation  rooms,  when  one  of  them  said  to  P : 

"  Ghost,  show  us  the  spirits !  " 

The  boy  addressed  was  a  delicate-looking  chap  of  medium 
height,  some  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  old,  whose  gentle  and 
truthful  nature  had  made  him  a  favorite  with  us  all — to  a 
greater  degree  perhaps  than  any  other  boy  in  the  school. 
The  subject  once  opened,  there  was  a  quite  general  talk 
about  raps  being  heard  about  his  bed,  and  similar  stories. 
It  was  news  to  me.  I  had  previously  supposed  that  his  nick- 
name of  "  Ghost "  was  the  result  of  his  comparatively  shadowy 
appearance,  but  I  was  to  learn  better. 

He  objected  to  giving  the  exhibition  because,  he  said,  it 
tired  him  so ;  but  at  last  he  was  persuaded. 

There  were  some  music-stands  in  the  room,  probably  two 
or  three,  over  which  we  did  our  fluting  and  fiddling. — Cer- 
tainly they  contained  no  hidden  batteries  and  connections. 
Each  consisted  of  a  wooden  slab  some  two  inches  thick,  and 
some  fifteen  by  eighteen  in  width  and  length,  resting  on 
the  floor ;  then  from  this  a  stick  some  two  by  three,  rising  to 
the  height  required  by  the  average  player;  and  on  top  of  the 
stick,  an  inclined  piece  about  the  size  of  the  base,  but  much 
thinner,  serving  as  a  desk  for  the  music.  The  whole  thing  was 
made,  probably,  of  white  pine,  and  unpainted. 

P stood  before  one  of  these  stands,  placing  his  fingers 

and  thumbs  lightly  on  the  desk,  which  sloped  with  the  top 
away  from  him.  Soon,  he  said :  "  If  there  are  any  spirits  pres- 
ent, will  they  please  tip  the  stand?"  No  response.  After 


Ch.  VIII]  P '*  Music-Stand  95 

several  repetitions  of  the  question,  the  stand  tipped  gently  £o- 
ward  him.  Now,  as  the  desk  sloped  away  from  him,  its  tipping 
toward  him  by  his  muscular  force  was  absolutely  impossible. 

After  a  time  the  stand  would  tip  in  response  to  all  sorts  of 
questions,  and  spell  words  in  response  to  letters  as  the 
alphabet  was  repeated.  Later  knowledge  leads  me  to  believe 

that  these  tippings  were  in  response  to  P 's  unconscious 

volition. 

Soon  P *s  arms  began  to  jerk  convulsively,  so  that  his 

hands  ceased  their  permanent  contact  with  the  stand,  and 
began  to  tap  it  with  increasing  frequency  and  strength.  Soon 
the  stand  ceased  to  fall  back  into  its  natural  position  of  stand- 
ing on  the  floor,  but  even  in  the  intervals  between  the  tap- 
pings, while  his  hands  did  not  touch  it,  remained  tipping 
toward  him,  not  rising  and  falling  as  his  hands  rose  and 
fell,  but  tipped  permanently.  The  force  produced  this  sus- 
pension without  contact — literally  was  telekinesis. 

The  jerkings  increased  in  frequency  and  violence  to 
a  rapid  tattoo  of  his  fingers  on  the  stand,  the  distances 
away  from  it  between  the  beats  increasing  to  nearly  or  quite 
a  foot,  and  the  stand  steadily  tipping  more  and  more  toward 
him  until,  probably,  the  top  had  passed  the  center  of  gravity, 
and  yet  it  did  not  fall  toward  him  or  back  toward  its  natural 
position,  but  was  virtually  held  in  what  all  previous  knowledge 
would  have  declared  an  impossible  position. 

Then  he  said :  "  Try  to  pull  it  down,"  and  the  strongest 
boy  among  us  on  one  side  of  the  base,  and  I,  who  was  perhaps 
the  heaviest,  on  the  other,  tried  to  turn  the  base  back  to 
the  floor.  We  could  not.  We  spread  ourselves  on  the  floor, 
throwing  our  hands  and  the  weight  of  our  bodies  over  the 
raised  bottom  of  the  stand,  but  we  could  only  sway  it  a  little, 
while  his  hands  continued  playing  their  tattoo — both  hands 
irregularly,  not  systematically  relieving  each  other  so  as  to 
exercise  a  continuous  pressure,  but  leaving  the  stand,  at  in- 
tervals of  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  second  each,  alternately  with 
and  without  contact  with  him.  The  contest  between  the  mus- 
cular force  of  the  strong  boys  at  the  base,  and  P 's  mysteri- 
ous force  at  the  desk,  continued  for  a  minute  or  two,  until  the 
base  of  the  structure  was  broken  off  or  the  nails  drawn  out,  and 
P sank  into  a  chair  exhausted.  The  frail  fellow  had 


96  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

put  forth  more  force  of  some  kind  than  the  muscular  force 
of  two  boys,  each  of  much  more  than  his  weight  and  many 
times  his  muscular  strength.  We  were  out  of  breath  and 

tired  too.  I  don't  remember  whether  P held  the  upper 

part  suspended  in  the  air,  or  whether  a  mysterious  circuit 
with  the  earth  was  broken  when  we  broke  off  the  base. 

Fatigue  like  P 's  is  generally  mentioned  as  following 

experiences  like  his,  and  the  other  manifestations  of  tele- 
kinesis. There  are  a  few  instances,  however,  where  appar- 
ently no  fatigue  is  experienced. 

I  remember  realizing  at  the  time  that  his  force  could  not 
be  electrical,  as  it  acted  through  wood. 

There  was  no  cabinet,  no  subdued  light,  no  machinery  but 
a  commonplace  piece  of  furniture  familiar  to  all  of  us,  no 
money  paid  for  the  show,  nothing  but  an  honest  and  kindly 
boy  sacrificing  himself  for  the  entertainment  of  his  mates. 

The  broken  stand  remained  there  as  evidence  that  we  had 
not  been  hypnotized,  and  I  seem  to  remember  some  incon- 
venience from  being  unable  to  use  it  before  it  was  mended. 

Now  if  I  have  not  told  those  things  exactly  as  they 
occurred,  I  never  told  any  other  concatenation  of  as  many 
things  exactly  as  they  occurred.  The  fact  of  his  putting 
forth  more  of  his  mysterious  force  than  we  did  of  our  mus- 
cular force,  is  as  indubitable  as  any  fact  in  my  experience. 
The  manifestation  was  so  simple  and  coherent  that  not  only 
was  room  for  error  conspicuously  lacking  at  the  time,  but 
room  for  failure  or  distortion  of  memory  has  been  conspicu- 
ously lacking  since. 

A  decade  ago,  Podmore  would  probably  have  urged  against 
this  testimony  that  it  has  no  confirmation;  that  the  parties 
were  all  boys ;  that  the  only  witness  was  convicted  during  his 
youth  of  writing  verses,  and  has  since  written  fiction;  that 
the  testimony  is  nearly  sixty  years  after  the  event,  and  that 
it  was  given  when  the  witness  was  presumably  in  his  dotage. 
Regarding  the  last  objection  I  am  not  entitled  to  an  opinion, 

and  the  others  are  all  facts.  The  other  witnesses  of  P 's 

phenomena  I  have  entirely  lost  sight  of,  and  indeed  forgotten 
who  they  were,  except  the  boy  who  helped  me  break  the 
stand.  He  was  a  Spanish-American,  and  went  back  to  his  own 
people. 


Ch.  VIII]       Another  Amateur  Table  Tipper  97 

For  anybody,  however,  who,  in  spite  of  all  that,  is  rash 
enough  to  accept  the  testimony,  telekinesis  is  proved. 

If  I  doubt  that  occurrence,  I  must  doubt  every  other  ex- 
perience I  ever  had.  My  certainty  regarding  those  phenomena 
cannot  be  increased.  But  if  it  could  be,  it  of  course  would  be 
by  the  vast  accumulation  since  then,  of  evidence  of  similar 
phenomena. 

There  have  been  many  ludicrous  efforts  to  account  for  such 
things  by  mechanical  means,  and  regarding  my  experience 

with  P ,  I  have  been  asked  in  many  polite  ways  if  I  am 

a  fool.  But  all  this  was  long  ago:  of  late  the  evidence  for 
telekinesis  is  so  strong  as  to  have  put  an  end  to  skepticism 
in  a  large  part  of  the  educated  world. 

Manifestations  of  telekinesis  have  been  known  to  come  from 
many  persons,  and  whatever  the  supplementary  tricks  of 
Eusapia  Palladino — the  "  medium  "  most  noted  at  present — 
there  seems  no  extravagance  in  assuming  that  this  mode  of 
force  is  sometimes  manifested  by  her,  and  is  the  foundation 
of  anything  genuine  in  her  performances. 

Here  is  an  account  furnished  by  one  of  my  sisters  of  an 
occurrence  somewhat  similar  to  mine,  witnessed  by  her : 

"  The  remarkable  '  table  tipping '  of  which  I  have  told  you 
occurred  many  years  ago  in  the  home  of  one  of  my  school 
friends.  She  had  an  older,  invalid  sister,  a  charming,  mag- 
netic woman,  whose  room  was  the  center  of  all  the  life  and 
gaiety  of  the  family.  One  day  a  number  of  us  girls  were 
seated,  as  was  our  wont,  around  her  bed — an  old-fashioned 
'four-poster'  (for  it  was  an  old-fashioned  home),  when  the 
conversation  drifted  to  '  spiritual  rappings,'  ghosts,  etc.  One 
of  our  number  (Miss  A.),  who  had  recently  displayed  remark- 
able powers  in  moving  and  tipping  furniture,  was  challenged 
to  make  a  small  but  very  heavy  oval  marble-topped  table, 
probably  three  or  three-and-a-half  feet  in  its  long  diameter, 
move  over  to  the  bed  and  mount  it.  She  accepted  the  chal- 
lenge, while  we  all  watched  with  laughing  incredulity.  She 
simply  rested  the  tips  of  the  fingers  of  both  hands  on  the 
table,  and  in  a  short  time  it  began  to  move,  she  following. 
When  it  reached  the  foot  of  the  bed  it  began  at  once  slowly 
to  wriggle  up  the  side— I  can  describe  its  motion  in  no  better 
way— until  it  lay  on  its  side  at  the  feet  of  the  startled 
invalid. 


98  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

"  On  inquiring  of  Miss  A.  what  her  sensations  were  while 
the  table  was  moving,  we  were  told  that  she  felt  as  if  a 
stream  of  cold  water  were  running  from  her  finger  tips  up 
her  arms,  and  she  now  felt  quite  exhausted. 

"Not  one  of  us  could  have  lifted  the  table  onto  the  bed, 
using  all  the  strength  we  possessed.  She  was  soon  after  for- 
bidden to  make  such  experiments  on  account  of  the  exhaustion 
which  followed." 

The  other  witnesses  of  Miss  A/s  phenomena  are  all 
dead.  But  since  that  day  so  much  well-authenticated  evidence 
of  similar  phenomena  has  accumulated,  that  one  witness  is 
worth  more  now  than  a  dozen  were  then. 

I  have  been  somewhat  surprised  at  the  number  of  private 
persons  free  from  all  suspicion  of  deceit,  and  not  working 
for  money,  who  have  manifested  such  phenomena.  While  I 
have  been  busy  at  this  book,  the  conversation  around  the  sup- 
per-table at  the  Authors'  Club  has  more  than  once  turned  on 
experiences  which  have  not  yet  been  correlated  with  estab- 
lished knowledge,  and  probably  half  the  men  present  have 
related  some. 

The  next  case  will  be  taken  from  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,  but  before  giving  it,  it  will 
be  well  to  give  some  idea  of  that  society  and  its  publications, 
citations  from  which  will  constitute  a  large  part  of  the 
remainder  of  this  work. 

Of  course,  like  all  other  phenomena,  these  we  are  con- 
sidering have  their  recurrent  waves  (Professor  Newbold  says 
at  intervals  of  about  six  centuries)  of  frequency  and  scarcity, 
as  required  by  the  law  of  vibration,  or  "  rhythm  of  motion  " 
as  Spencer  calls  it;  and  probably  the  only  new  thing  about 
them  is  that  the  latest  wave  happened,  as  already  stated, 
to  start  up  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  and  roll  into 
the  ken  of  modern  science.  Under  the  present  faith  in  facts, 
there  has  been  accumulated  a  vast  array  of  those  connected 
with  these  subjects.  But  apparently  unlike  most  other  matters 
of  wide  curiosity,  until  comparatively  lately  few  systematic 
attempts  were  made  to  "  explain  "  them — to  correlate  them 
with  established  knowledge. 

About  1880,  a  group  of  friends  connected  with  the  Uni- 
versities of  Cambridge  and  Dublin,  met  for  the  investigation 


Ch.  VIII]    The  Society  for  Psychical  Research  99 

of  obscure  phenomena.  It  will  not  be  surprising  if  the 
future  regards  the  gathering  of  these  friends  as  epoch-making. 
In  1882  they  founded  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 
The  name  Psychical  was  too  narrow :  for  physical  phenomena 
have  also  been  examined  and  reported  upon.  Up  to  that  time, 
so  far  as  I  know,  neither  class  of  phenomena  uncorrelated 
with  existing  science  had  received  the  attention  of  any  organ- 
ized body  of  workers.  In  October,  1882,  the  society  issued 
the  first  "  Part "  of  its  "  Proceedings,"  to  be  hereafter  alluded 
to  in  these  pages  so  frequently  as  to  require  the  abbreviation 
"  Pr.  S.  P.  R.,"  and  later  merely  Pr.  The  first  volume  was 
completed  in  December,  1883.  The  twenty-sixth  volume  was 
completed  in  1913.*  The  Society  has  also  issued  a  "  Journal  " 
exclusively  for  its  members,  of  which  the  fifteenth  volume  was 
completed  in  1912. 

The  general  intellectual  culture  concentrated  in  the  Society 
has  seldom  been  equalled  in  any  learned  organization.  The 
reports  almost  without  exception  are  models  of  reasoning  and 
diction.  For  their  cultural  effect  alone  most  of  them  are 
well  worth  reading.  The  idea  of  vulgar  and  ignorant  credulity 
in  connection  with  the  authors  is  ludicrous.  Nor  is  it  possible 
to  feel  regarding  the  reports  as  a  mass,  the  misgivings  ger- 
mane to  the  conclusions  of  purely  literary  persons  regarding 
practical  affairs :  for  though  Frederic  Myers,  for  instance,  held 
a  high  position  in  literature ;  Henry  Sidgwick  held  one  equally 

*  The  8.  P.  R.  was  singularly  fortunate  in  its  founders.  They  were 
all  remarkable  persons.  Among  them,  in  addition  to  Professor  (now 
Sir  William)  Barrett  of  the  University  of  Dublin,  who  called  them  to- 
gether, were  Professor  Henry  Bidpwick  of  the  University  of  Cambridge, 
and  Messrs.  F.  W.  H.  Mvers  and  Edmund  Gurney,  ex-fellows  of  Cam- 
bridge. 

Soon  after  the  start,  the  Cambridge  group  was  increased  by  Mrs. 
Sidgwickand  Professor  and  Mrs.  Verrall.  all  of  whom,  especially  the 
ladies,  contributed  important  matter  to  the  Proceedings.  Mrs.  Verrall's 
are  quite  voluminous,  and  their  scientific  value  is  illuminated  by  rare 
literary  charm 

Closely  associated  with  those  already  named  soon  became  America's 
greatest  psychologist,  Professor  William  James,  and  Dr.  Richard 
Hodgson,  who  in  many  respects  surpassed  any  of  those  named  earlier, 
yet  he  did  not,  like  some  of  them,  leave  an  important  book  as  A  monu- 
ment, or,  like  others,  attain  fame  in  sciences  outside  of  "Psychical  Re- 
search." But  in  devotion  to  the  cause,  in  acuteness  of  the  intelligence 
which  he  brought  to  it.  especially  in  the  detection  of  fraud :  and  in 
grasp  of  the  indications  of  general  principle  scattered  among  its  bewil- 
dering phenomena,  he  was  perhaps3  first  of  all.  James  said  that  he 


100  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

high  in  the  sciences  of  mind  and  society;  Sir  William 
Crookes,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  and  Sir  William  Barrett  have 
all  received  knighthood  for  their  eminence  in  the  physical 
sciences,  and  the  position  in  psychology  of  Professors  James, 
Royce,  and  Morton  Prince  I  almost  feel  like  asking  the 
reader's  pardon  for  naming  in  an  American  book.  That  such 
a  society  should  have  spent  its  time  over  trifling  or  unverified 
stories  would  be  ridiculous  to  presume. 

The  twenty-six  volumes  of  the  society's  Proceedings,  and 
its  Journal,  contain  also  pretty  much  everything  of  great  con- 
sequence on  the  subject  that  has  been  reported  elsewhere. 
There  is  also  a  similar  single  volume  of  reports  of  a  very 
eminent  American  society  that  existed  from  1885  to  1889, 
and  several  volumes  of  reports  of  a  later  American  society. 
So  much  of  these  later  American  reports  is  duplicated  or  sum- 
marized in  the  English  reports,  that  I  have  not  made  a  thor- 
ough study  of  them.  In  addition  to  these  various  reports,  the 
literature  of  the  subject  in  English  is  already  considerable, 
though  until  the  last  fifth  of  the  last  century,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few  books  on  Mesmerism  (or  Hypnotism)  and  Som- 
nambulism, and  the  usual  quack  mystical  works,  it  was  mainly 
restricted  to  the  general  treatises  on  Psychology.  The  con- 
tinental reports  and  literature  are  worth  attention,  though 
until  lately  most  continental  investigators  reported  through 
the  S.  P.  R. 

knew  no  handling  of  a  large  mass  of  elusive  matter  to  surpass  Hodg- 
son's report  in  Pr.  XIII.  Hodgson  began  as  the  hardest-headed  of  the 
skeptics,  exposed  more  frauds  than  any  other  man,  and  eventually  be- 
came an  enthusiastic  spiritist.  The  last  dozen  years  or  so  of  his  life 
were  spent  in  America  as  Secretary  of  the  American  Branch  of  the 
S.  P.  R 

Other  officers  and  members  hare  been  Lord  Rayleigh ;  Professors 
Bowditch.  Cope,  Crookes,  Fullerton,  L.  P.  Jacks,  Langley,  Lodge, 
Gilbert  Murray,  Newbold,  Newcomb,  Purapelly,  Royce ;  Drs.  W.  T. 
Harris,  L.  Emmett  Holt,  and  Morton  Prince ;  and  Messrs.  Thomas  Da- 
vidson, W.  E.  Gladstone,  J.  G.  Piddington,  Frank  Podmore,  and  A. 
R.  Wallace. 

Of  the  active  members:  Sidgwick,  Podmore,  Gurney,  Myers,  Hodg- 
son, and  James  have  gone  from  earth — perhaps  into  the  deepest  of  the 
mysteries  which  absorbed  so  much  of  their  interest. 

Professors  Lodge,  Crookes,  and  Barrett,  who  were  all  of  the  early 
group,  and  have  contributed  much  to  the  Proceedings,  still  survive  with 
years  and  honors  thick  upon  them.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  approaching  the 
subject  with  the  usual  scientific  skepticism,  became  a  convinced 
spiritist,  and  has  written  a  volume  on  The  Survival  of  Man. 


Ch.  VIII]  As  to  the  Evidence  101 

That  large  portion  of  the  scientific  world  which  has  refused 
to  study  the  phenomena,  of  course  scouts  the  questions  alto- 
gether. 

Professor  Sidgwick,  in  his  inaugural  address  as  first  Pres- 
ident of  the  Society,  said  (Pr.  I,  8)  : 

"It  is  a  scandal  that  the  dispute  as  to  the  reality  of  these 
phenomena  should  still  be  going  on,  that  so  many  competent 
witnesses  should  have  declared  their  belief  in  them,  that  so 
many  others  should  be  profoundly  interested  in  having  the 
question  determined,  and  yet  that  the  educated  world,  as  a 
body,  should  still  be  simply  in  the  attitude  of  incredulity." 

Probably  no  equal  authority  would  find  it  worth  while  to 
express  himself  to  that  effect  now. 

Throughout  the  early  volumes  of  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.  a  great 
deal  of  attention  was  given  to  questions  of  intentional  fraud, 
and  an  enormous  deal  of  it  was  unearthed.  But  gradually 
enough  unquestionable  phenomena  and  reliable  "  mediums  " 
were  found  to  leave  the  society  little  time  or  temptation  to 
bother  with  others. 

The  day  for  extreme  skepticism  regarding  the  actuality 
of  most  of  the  phenomena  is  now  past.  To  doubt  it  is  now, 
as  in  the  oft-quoted  phrase  of  Schopenhauer  regarding 
telopsis,  not  skepticism,  but  ignorance.  I  shall  not  waste 
much  space  in  attempts  to  authenticate  them.  Men  have  been 
very  properly  and  profitably  hung  on  the  unsupported  evidence 
of  children,  the  only  additional  requirement  being  confirmative 
circumstances.  Such  circumstances,  the  existence  of  parallel 
verified  cases,  the  character  of  the  witness,  and  consistency 
of  the  general  conditions,  I  shall  try  to  regard  in  giving 
unsupported  evidence.  Yet  the  principle  illustrated  is  the 
essential  thing,  and  if  it  is  so  well  supported  as  to  deserve 
illustrating  at  all,  it  might  sometimes  be  better  illustrated 
for  the  general  reader  by  even  an  impressive  fictitious  narra- 
tive, than  by  a  squalid  or  malodorous  fact. 

It  is  often  impossible  within  the  limits  to  give  a  fair  ex- 
position of  evidence  on  both  sides.  Persons  caring  for  that 
must  go  to  originals.  I  will  give  only  what  appear  to  me 
the  points  worth  considering,  with  as  fair  an  exhibition  of 
the  tendency  of  evidence  as  the  space  and  my  capacities 
permit. 


102  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

We  now  proceed  to  some  other  cases  of  telekinesis  taken 
from  the  Proceedings.  I  shall  occasionally  obtrude  a  query 
or  suggestion  or  explanation  in  square  brackets  with  my 
initials  [thus:  H.  H.]. 

The  first  account  is  virtually  identical  with  my  experience 

with  P and  the  music-stand.  It  is  by  Mr.  George  Allman 

Armstrong,  of  8,  Leesonplace,  Dublin,  and  Ardnacarrig, 
Bandon  . . .  June  1,  1887.  (Pr.  VII,  158-9)  : 

"  This  manifestation . . .  required  a  great  amount  of  concen- 
trated will  power,  and  when  successful  the  results  were  startling, 

and  the  apparent  physical  force  developed  really  wonderful 

The  table  slowly  swayed  from  side  to  side  like  a  pendulum, 
stopped  completely,  and  then,  as  if  imbued  with  life,  and  quite 
suddenly,  rose  completely  off  the  floor  to  a  height  of  a  foot  or 
fourteen  inches  at  least,  and  nearly  always  came  down  with 
immense  force,  which  ...  on  several  occasions  proved  destructive 
to  itself,  as  the  broken  limbs  of  the  table  we  used . . .  could 
testify.  This  table,  I  may  add,  was  a  round,  rather  heavy, 
walnut  one,  with  a  central  column,  standing  on  three  claw  legs, 
and  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  us  unaided  to  have  de- 
veloped the  force  (by  muscular  energy)  required  to  produce  this 

manifestation On    several    occasions   I   have   succeeded   in 

raising  the  table  without  contact,  the  latter  rising  to  our 
fingers  held  over  it  at  a  height  of  several  inches,  like  the 
keeper  to  a  strong  electro-magnet;  in  these  instances  the 
table  swayed  slowly  in  mid-air  for  many  seconds  before 

coming  down  with  a  crash Frequently . . .  the  table  would 

rise  on  one  leg,  in  which  position  I  willed  it  to  remain, 
the  united  efforts  of  the  rest  to  press  it  down  to  its  normal 
position  being  utterly  fruitless,  and  often  resulting  in  a 
fracture." 

In  Pr.  S.  P.  R.  and  elsewhere  are  given  scores,  probably 
hundreds,  of  authenticated  accounts  of  phenomena  similar 
to  those  just  described,  and  due  to  both  non-professional  and 
professional  mediums.  There  are  two  specially  good  ones 
in  Pr.  IV,  29,  and  IX,  259. 

The  presumption  for  the  genuineness  of  such  phenomena 
is  of  course  greater  where  the  mediums  are  persons  least 
likely  to  deceive,  such  as  children,  and  my  young  friend 

P .  There  are  many  such  cases.  The  two  following 

accounts  are  furnished  by  Professor  Alexander  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Rio  Janeiro  (Pr.  VII,  175f.) : 


Ch.  VIII]  The  Davis  Children  103 

"  At  tea  the  dining-room  table,  round  which  were  seated  Mr. 
Davis,  Mrs.  Davis,  their  five  little  daughters,  Mrs.  Z.,  and  I, 
swayed  backward  and  forward,  or  rose  at  one  end  in  sudden 
emphatic  movements." 

A  very  homogeneous  party!  It  will  often  be  seen  later  that 
these  phenomena  are  generally  better  as  the  sitters  are  more 
homogeneous.  Professor  Alexander's  account  continues: 

"  I  requested  C.,  who  was  seated  two  places  from  me,  her 
little  sister  D.  being  between  us,  to  place  her  hand  on  the 
back  of  my  chair,  which  she  did,  touching  it  with  apparent 
lightness.  The  chair  began  at  once  to  sway  from  side  to  side, 
and  continued  to  do  so  after  I  had  taken  my  feet  from  the 

ground.      There   was    an    application    of   great   power All 

this  while  C.  sat  immovable;  and  it  was  very  manifest  that 
she  made  not  the  slightest  effort.  The  next  evening  Mr.  X., 
who  is  very  muscular,  took  C.'s  seat,  while  I  retained  my  own; 
and  he  then  tried"  [By  muscular  force.  H. H.}  "to  produce 
the  same  effect  under  exactly  the  same  conditions,  with  the 
result  that  his  chair  slid  back,  while  mine  remained  immov- 
able. My  weight,  which  I  suppose  has  not  changed  to  any 
considerable  degree  since  then,  I  find  to  be  13st."  [182  Ibs. 
H.  H.]  "  The  high  chair  in  which  Amy,  a  child  then  thirteen 
months  old,  was  seated  was  moved  backwards  and  forwards 
about  10  or  12  inches,  between  the  table  and  the  wall,  this 
being  done  so  abruptly  that  the  chair  was  sometimes  forced 
partly  under  the  table  and  threatened  to  fall  backwards.  The 
child,  instead  of  being  alarmed,  chuckled  and  laughed,  though 
we  older  people  were  sometimes  rather  anxious  lest  she  should 

be  hurt On  the  right  hand  of  the  child  was  seated  Mrs.  Z., 

on  the  left  A.  The  chair,  while  moving, . . .  was  not  twisted 
round  as  would  be  the  case  if  it  were  drawn  forward  on  one 

side  only  by  the  foot  of  either  of  the  neighbors 1  have  tried 

moving  the  same  chair  myself,  when  seated  beside  Amy,  and 
find  that,  although  I  have  rather  more  than  the  average  strength 
in  my  lower  limbs,  the  push  can  be  given  only  with  considerable 
difficulty,  and  has  the  effect  of  turning  the  chair  half  round." 

In  the  following  case  (Pr.  VII,  160f.)  this  force  apparently 
acted  in  the  absence  of  a  medium;  but  the  last  three  para- 
graphs seem  to  indicate  a  medium  after  all. 

The  word  medium  is  a  handy  one  if  it  is  not  taken  to  mean 
too  much.  Here  of  course  it  means  only  the  medium — prob- 
ably the  generator — of  an  unknown  force.  Later  it  will  mean 
other  things. 

"  Our  informant  is  a  gentleman  occupying  a  responsible 
position;  his  name  may  be  given  to  inquirers. 


104  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

"  On  Friday,  September  23d,  I  took  my  four  pupils  to  a 

circus, . . .  leaving  my  two  servants  at  home All  but  myself 

returned  at  about  5:30,  and  found  the  two  servants  on  the 
doorstep,  telling  the  boys  not  to  go  in  by  the  area  door . . .  and 
explaining  that  all  the  bells  were  ringing  violently,  no  one 
touching  them,  and  they  had  been  doing  so  almost  ever  since  we 
left.  I  left  home,  I  think,  at  about  7  o'clock.  At  about  9 :30 . . . 
the  cook  came  over ...  to  say  that  we  must  come  back,  as  there 

were  such  dreadful  knockings  going  on  in  the  house It 

sounded  like  a  mallet  on  a  wooden  floor,  speaking  loosely.  The 
laundryman  came  in  soon  after  it  began  and  was,  I  believe, 

quite  scared A  teacher  in  the  board  school  was  so  scared  by 

the  knocking  that  he  would  not  stay  in  the  house,  but  went 

on  the  doorstep When  I  came  back  I  found  the  same 

state  of  things;  the  servants  almost  in  hysterics,  and  the 
bells  ringing.  The  bells  hang  all  in  one  row,  just  inside  the 

area  door  and  opposite  the  kitchen  door,  nine  of  them As 

to  the  possibility  of  cats  or  rats  doing  it:  this  is  a  new  house. 
. . .  We  have  never  seen  or  heard  the  slightest  trace  of  a  rat,  nor 
have  we  ever  to  our  knowledge  had  a  strange  cat  in ;  nor,  indeed, 

could  one,  as  far  as  I  know,  get  into  the  floor  anywhere The 

bell  hanger  entirely  agreed  with  me  that  it  would  be  an  im- 
possibility for  any  animal,  or  even  animals,  to  ring  them  all 

as  they  were  rung 1  ought  to  say  that  the  wires  of  the  bells 

distinctly  pulled — it  was  not  only  the  bells  or  clappers  moving; 
indeed,  in  one  or  two  cases  they  could  be  heard  grating  under 
the  floor.  The  bell-handles  were  not  moved 

"Next  day  Mrs.  K.  took  the  boys  to  service,  and  when  they 
came  back . . .  the  cook  told  her  (and  I  believe  she  is  perfectly 
trustworthy,  as  far  as  truthfulness  goes)  that  soon  after  they 
left  the  bells  had  begun  to  ring;  two  of  them,  at  least,  and  so 
violently  that  at  last  she  got  the  steps  and  got  two  of  the  bells 
off After  that  they  heard  the  wires  pulled  in  the  floor,  &c. 

"  Then  they  went  upstairs  to  do  the  bedrooms,  Mary  (the 
housemaid)  clinging  to  her,  as  she  did  all  the  time,  being 
too  scared  to  go  about  by  herself.  When  they  had  got  half- 
way up  the  '  knocking '  began,  just  as  on  the  previous  occa- 
sion, and  as  I  had  heard  it,  in  sets  of  two  and  three  quickly 
repeated  raps,  or,  rather,  blows.  They  ran  downstairs  directly, 
in  a  fright.  At  last  they  summoned  courage  enough  to  go 
up,  and  going  into  the  bedroom  where  two  of  the  boys  sleep 
they  found  the  hairbrush  belonging  to  one  of  them  on  the 
floor  by  the  fireplace,  smashed  in  half 

"  I  cannot  help  now  connecting  the  occurrences  with  the 

housemaid 1  am,  as  I  have  said,  perfectly  certain  that  she 

had  nothing  to  do  voluntarily  with  the  bell  ringing ;  indeed, . . . 
it  would  be  literally  impossible  for  her  to  ring  the  bells  as  they 
were  rung,  even  apart  from  any  necessity  to  conceal  the  method 
of  doing  so. 


Ch.  VIII]  Daniel  Dunglas  Home  105 

"  If  any  further  proof  of  her  freedom  from  complicity  were 
needed,  her  state  on  the  Saturday  night  would  be  enough. 
...She  was  delirious  all  night...  till  4  in  the  morning;... 
clearly  asleep,  though  most  of  the  time  her  eyes  were  wide  open, 
I  suppose  in  the  ordinary  '  somnambulist '  state.  She  talked 
incessantly  all  night,  very  much  about  the  bells,  &c.,  and  in  such 
a  way  as  to  show  she  was  completely  alarmed  and  terrified  at 
it. ...  The  occurrences  have  taken  place  almost  always,  if  not 
always,  when  she  has  been  in  a  state  of  nervous  excitement ; . . . 
she  had  been  upset  in  her  nerves  for  some  days  previously." 

The  phenomena  so  far  cited  have  had  nothing  to  do  with 
professional  mediums  or  persons  who  could  have  had  any 
possible  motive  to  deceive.  There  are  on  record  hundreds 
of  cases  from  similar  agents,  but  to  quote  more  would  tend 
toward  monotony:  so  let  us  proceed  to  allegations  of  even 
more  remarkable  manifestations,  from  persons  so  unusually 
endowed  as  to  make  them  notorious,  and  not  only  objects  of 
legitimate  curiosity,  but  important  in  the  relation  their  per- 
sonal qualities  bear  to  the  qualities  of  the  phenomena.  There- 
fore I  will  give  some  account  of  the  principal  ones  as  we 
meet  them. 

Perhaps  the  most  numerous  and  remarkable  exhibitions  of 
queer  things  during  the  present  cycle  of  them  in  America 
and  Europe,  were  given  by  Daniel  Dunglas  Home. 

He  was  born  in  Scotland  in  1833,  brought  to  America 
when  nine  years  old,  lived  for  some  time  in  Norwich,  Conn., 
and  is  alleged  to  have  exhibited  in  many  places  in  America 
and  Europe  pretty  much  everything  of  the  marvelous  that 
has  been  exhibited  by  anybody.  In  addition  to  such  phe- 
nomena as  those  already  described,  he  is  credited,  or  charged, 
with  telepathy,  telopsis  (clairvoyance),  prophecy,  seeing  and 
conversing  with  spirits,  spirit  possession,  healing,  and  a  habit 
of  getting  himself  married  and  adopted  by  rich  women.  He 
also  had  a  remarkable  power  of  ingratiating  himself  with 
important  people,  even  being  a  favorite  at  the  courts  of  France 
and  Russia. 

Many  of  the  claims  made  for  and  by  him  seem  so  ex- 
travagant, and  one  side  of  his  life,  as  hinted  toward  the  end 
of  the  last  paragraph,  is  so  open  to  suspicion,  that  persons 
who  directly  know  nothing  of  superusual  phenomena,  are 
tempted  to  dismiss  all  connected  with  him  as  humbug. 


106  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Ft.  I 

Before  I  read  his  autobiography  (Incidents  in  My  Life) 
I  thought  of  him  as  a  modern  Cagliostro,  but  even  Cagliostro, 
like  pretty  much  everybody  else,  has  lately  been  whitewashed; 
and  after  carefully  reading  Home's  book,  which  quotes  from 
competent  sitters  many  accounts  ranging  from  skepticism  to 
enthusiasm,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  he  was  about  as 
honest  as  a  half-educated,  anaemic,  neurotic,  woman-hunted 
sentimentalist  is  able  to  be,  and  this  opinion  is  concurred  in 
by  nearly  all  the  most  able  investigators,  although  Robert 
Browning,  for  instance,  who  certainly  was  not  one  of  them, 
based  "  Sludge  the  Medium  "  on  Home.  As  my  own  observa- 
tion forces  me  to  accept  some  of  these  wonders,  I  do  not 
find  it  easy  to  determine  where  to  draw  the  line  at  the 
others.  Some  accounts  of  Home's  are  so  full  of  gush  as 
to  seem  on  their  face  worthless;  but  they  are  supported  by 
others  from  calm  lawyers  and  men  of  science,  which  testify 
to  things  just  as  marvelous  as  those  recounted  by  the  gushers. 

Here  is  a  description  of  Home's  personality  from  Stainton 
Moses  (Pr.  IX,  295)  of  whom  an  account  will  be  given  a  few- 
pages  further  on. 

"  Mr.  D.  D.  Home  is  a  striking-looking  man.  His  head  is 
a  good  one.  He  shaves  his  face  with  the  exception  of  a 
moustache,  and  his  hair  is  bushy  and  curly.  He  gives  me 
the  impression  of  an  honest,  good  person,  whose  intellect  is 

not   of   a  high  order He   resolutely  refuses   to  believe  in 

anything  that  he  has  not  seen  for  himself.  For  instance, 
he  refuses  to  believe  in  the  passage  of  matter  through  matter, 
and  when  pressed  concludes  the  argument  by  saying,  '  I  have 
never  seen  it.' . . .  He  accepts  the  theory  of  the  return  in 
rare  instances  of  the  departed,  but  believes  with  me  that 
most  of  the  manifestations  proceed  from  a  low  order  of  spirits 
who  hover  near  the  earth  sphere.  He  does  not  believe  in  Mrs. 
Guppy's  passage  through  matter,  nor  in  her  honesty.  He 
thinks  that  regular  manifestations  are  not  possible.  Conse- 
quently, he  disbelieves  public  mediums  generally He  said 

be  was  thankful  to  know  that  his  mantle  had  fallen  on  me, 
and  urged  me  to  prosecute  the  inquiry  and  defend  the  faith. 
Altogether  he  made  quite  an  Elijah  and  Elisha  business  of 
my  reception.  He  plays  and  sings  very  nicely,  and  recites 
well.  He  wore  several  handsome  diamonds,  gifts  from  royal 
and  distinguished  persons.  He  is  a  thoroughly  good,  honest, 
weak,  and  very  vain  man,  with  but  little  intellect,  and  no  ability 
to  argue  or  defend  his  faith." 


Ch.  VIII]        Sir  William  Crookes  on  Home  107 

There  is  a  very  interesting  account  of  Home's  personal 
character  in  Jour.  S.  P.  R.,  VI,  107. 

Sir  William  Crookes  says  (Researches  in  the  Phenomena 
of  Spiritualism,  p.  99)  : 

"  Mr.  Home  has  frequently  been  searched  before  and  after 
the  seances,  and  he  always  offers  to  allow  it.  During  the  most 
remarkable  occurrences  I  have  occasionally  held  both  his  hands, 
and  placed  my  feet  on  his  feet.  On  no  single  occasion  hare 
I  proposed  a  modification  of  arrangements  for  the  purpose  of 
rendering  trickery  less  possible,  which  he  has  not  at  once 
assented  to,  and  frequently  he  has  himself  drawn  attention  to 
tests  which  might  be  tried. 

"  I  speak  chiefly  of  Mr.  Home,  as  he  is  so  much  more  power- 
ful than  most  of  the  other  mediums  I  have  experimented  with. 
But  with  all  I  have  taken  such  precautions  as  to  place  trickery 
out  of  the  list  of  possible  explanations." 

The  best  evidential  accounts  of  Home's  phenomena,  though 
there  have  been  many  others,  are  those  by  Sir  William  Crookes. 
On  page  85  he  gives  the  following  instances  of  telekinetic 
molar  effects  produced  by  Home.  But  before  I  quote  them, 
let  me  say  that  Sir  William  does  not  attribute  them  to 
"  spirits."  His  "  researches  "  were  into  what  others  called 
"  spiritualism,"  not  what  he  did.  He  says : 

P.  85 :  "  Tables,  chairs,  sofas,  etc.,  have  been  moved  when  the 

medium  has  not  been  touching  them 1  have  had  several 

repetitions  of  the  experiment  considered  by  the  Committee 
of  the  Dialectical  Society  to  be  conclusive,  viz.,  the  movement 
of  a  heavy  table  in  full  light,  the  chairs  turned  with  their 
backs  on  the  table,  about  a  foot  off,  and  each  person  kneeling 
on  his  chair,  with  hands  resting  over  the  backs  of  the  chair, 
but  not  touching  the  table.  On  one  occasion  this  took  place 
when  I  was  moving  about  so  as  to  see  how  every  one  was 
placed 

P.  88 :  "  On  five  separate  occasions,  a  heavy  dining-table 
rose  between  a  few  inches  and  one  and  a  half  feet  off  the  floor, 
under  special  circumstances,  which  rendered  trickery  impos- 
sible. On  another  occasion,  a  heavy  table  rose  from  the  floor 
in  full  light,  while  I  was  holding  the  medium's  hands  and 
feet  On  another  occasion,  the  table  rose  from  the  floor,  not 
only  when  no  person  was  touching  it,  but  under  conditions 
which  I  had  prearranged  so  as  to  assure  unquestionable  proof 
of  the  fact." 

P.  90 :  "A  medium,  walking  into  my  dining-room,  cannot, 
while  seated  in  one  part  of  the  room  with  a  number  of  persons 


108  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

keenly  watching  him,  by  trickery  make  an  accordion  play  in 
my  own  hand  when  I  hold  it  key  downwards,  or  cause  the  same 
accordion  to  float  about  the  room  playing  all  the  time."  [The 
character  of  the  playing  will  be  described  later.  H.  H.]  "  He 
cannot  introduce  machinery  which  will  wave  window-curtains 
or  pull  up  Venetian  blinds  eight  feet  off,  tie  a  knot  in  a  hand- 
kerchief and  place  it  in  a  far  corner  of  the  room,  sound  notes 
on  a  distant  piano,  cause  a  card-plate  to  float  about  the  room, 
raise  a  water-bottle  and  tumbler  from  the  table,  make  a  coral 
necklace  rise  on  end,  cause  a  fan  to  move  about  and  fan  the 
company,  or  set  in  motion  a  pendulum  when  enclosed  in  a 
glass  case  firmly  cemented  to  the  wall." 

Here  are  the  particulars  about  the  necklace,  etc.  (Pr. 
VI,  113.)  Miss  Bird  writes  :— 

"  I  remember  the  circumstances  stated  in  this  seance.  I 
had  noticed  that  the  necklace  worn  by  Mrs.  William  Crookes 
looked  green.  I  asked  her  why  her  beads  were  green.  She 
assured  me  they  were  her  corals,  and  to  convince  me  the  neck- 
lace was  passed  into  my  hands.  Instead  of  passing  the  neck- 
lace back  I  simply  put  it  opposite  me  in  the  middle  of  the 
table.  Almost  as  soon  as  I  had  placed  the  necklace  it  rose 
in  a  spiral  shape.  I  called  out  eagerly  to  my  brother,  Dr. 
Bird,  to  look  at  the  extraordinary  conduct  of  the  threaded 
corals,  and  whilst  I  was  endeavoring  to  get  his  attention  the 
erect  necklace  quietly  subsided  in  a  coil  on  the  table.  I  have 
often  recalled  the  incident,  and  although  a  skeptic  by  instinct, 
this  one  strange  experience  has  made  it  impossible  for  me  to 
doubt  the  assertions  of  others  whose  judgment  is  clear  and 
whose  uprightness  is  above  suspicion. 

"  ALICE  L.  BIRD." 

To  this  Dr.  Bird  adds:— 

"I  recollect  my  sister  calling  out  to  me:  'Look,  look,  at 
the  necklace,'  but  at  that  moment  my  attention  was  directed 
elsewhere,  and  I  did  not  actually  see  the  phenomenon  in 
question.  "  GEORGE  BIRD." 

(C.)  [I  preface  this  paragraph  with  Sir  William  Crookes's 
initial,  and  shall  frequently  preface  other  paragraphs  similarly, 
to  indicate  where  the  principal  narrator  takes  up  an  interrupted 
theme.  H.  H.]  "  At  the  moment  this  occurred  I  was  writing 
my  notes  and  only  caught  sight  of  the  necklace  as  it  was  set- 
tling down  from  its  first  movement.  It  made  one  or  two  slight 
movements  afterwards,  and,  as  I  state,  it  seemed  to  me  as  if 
it  had  been  moved  from  below.  I  mentioned  this  at  the  time 
and  was  then  told  by  Miss  Bird  and  others  that  the  necklace 
had  behaved  as  is  now  described  by  her.  Not  having  seen  it 
myself,  I  did  not  alter  the  statement  in  my  note-book." 


Ch.  VIII]      Home  in  the  Crookes  Laboratory  109 

Sir  William  published  in  the  Quarterly  Journal  for  Science 
for  July  1,  1871,  an  account  of  some  experiments  carefully  and 
frequently  repeated  in  his  laboratory,  which  demonstrated  that 
Home  could  greatly  increase  or  decrease  the  weight  of  a  body 
by  touching  it.  He  later  describes  an  experiment  in  which 
Home  conveyed  pressure  not  by  touching  the  object  moved, 
but  merely  by  touching  water  that  was  in  contact  with  the 
object,  and  later  still  without  any  contact  whatever  with  any- 
thing related  to  the  object  moved,  unless  with  the  air  and 
the  ether.  A  description  of  the  apparatus  is  given,  but  is  not 
easy  for  the  non-technical  reader  to  understand.  It  can  be 
found  by  the  few  who  would  study  it,  in  the  Journal  for 
Science  or  in  Mr.  (as  he  was  then)  Crookes's  book,  the 
Researches,  already  cited. 

His  dealings  with  his  opponents,  especially  on  pp.  46-8, 
are  almost  as  interesting — perhaps  to  the  average  reader 
more  interesting,  than  his  accounts  of  his  experiments. 

He  offered  no  explanation  of  the  phenomena,  simply  at- 
tributed them  to  a  mode  of  force  previously  unknown,  which 
he  suggested  should  be  termed  Psychic,  and  called  upon  his 
scientific  brethren  and  all  persons  interested  to  assist  in  its 
investigation. 

The  accounts,  though  they  were  subsequently  confirmed 
by  Mr.  Huggins,  the  astronomer  royal,  and  Mr.  E.  W.  Cox, 
an  eminent  sergeant  at  law,  were  received  with  much  de- 
rision. The  author  was  called  a  spiritualist;  explanations 
more  improbable  than  the  facts  were  offered  by  various  per- 
sons, scientific  and  non-scientific;  the  author's  farther  papers 
on  the  subject  were  rejected  by  the  Royal  Society;  sundry 
proceedings  were  taken  by  members  of  the  Society  for  which 
the  Society  later  passed  a  formal  resolution  of  regret;  and 
the  whole  affair  was  one  of  the  most  discreditable  in  the 
annals  of  science,  except  where  science  has  been  identified  with 
theology. 

Sir  William  gave  very  full  details  of  all  the  experiments 
and  their  reception.  He  said  (Researches,  p.  40)  : 

"In  the  case  of  Mr.  Home,  the  development  of  this  force 
varies  enormously,  not  only  from  week  to  week,  but  from  hour 
to  hour;  on  some  occasions  the  force  is  unappreciable  by  my 
tests  for  an  hour  or  more,  and  then  suddenly  reappears  in 


110  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Ft.  I 

great  strength.  It  is  capable  of  acting  at  a  distance  from 
Mr.  Home  (not  infrequently  as  far  as  two  or  three  feet),  but 
is  always  strongest  close  to  him." 

(Op.  cit.,  10):  "It  has  but  seldom  happened  that  a  result 
obtained  on  one  occasion  could  be  subsequently  confirmed  and 
tested  with  apparatus  especially  contrived  for  the  purpose. 

(Op.  cit.,  16-17):  "A  committee  of  scientific  men  met  Mr. 
Home  some  months  ago  at  St.  Petersburg.  They  had  one 
meeting  only,  which  was  attended  with  negative  results;  and 
on  the  strength  of  this  they  published  a  report  highly  unfavor- 
able to  Mr.  Home.  The  explanation  of  this  failure,  which 
is  all  they  have  accused  him  of,  appears  to  me  quite  simple. 
Whatever  the  nature  of  Mr.  Home's  power,  it  is  very  variable, 
and  at  times  entirely  absent.  It  is  obvious  that  the  Russian 
experiment  was  tried  when  the  force  was  at  a  minimum.  The 
same  thing  has  frequently  happened  within  my  own  experi- 
ence. A  party  of  scientific  men  met  Mr.  Home  at  my  house, 
and  the  results  were  as  negative  as  those  at  St.  Petersburg. 
Instead,  however,  of  throwing  up  the  inquiry,  we  patiently 
repeated  the  trial  a  second  and  a  third  time,  when  we  met 
with  results  which  were  positive. 

"  To  witness  exhibitions  of  this  force  it  is  not  necessary 
to  have  access  to  known  psychics.  The  force  itself  is  prob- 
ably possessed  by  all  human  beings,  although  the  individuals 
endowed  with  an  extraordinary  amount  of  it  are  doubtless 
few.  Within  the  last  twelve  months  I  have  met  in  private 
families  five  or  six  persons  possessing  a  sufficiently  vigorous 
development  to  make  me  feel  confident  that  similar  results 
might  be  produced  through  their  means  to  those  here  recorded, 
provided  the  experimentalist  worked  with  more  delicate  ap- 
paratus, capable  of  indicating  a  fraction  of  a  grain  instead 
of  recording  pounds  and  ounces  only. 

"  Being  firmly  convinced  that  there  could  be  no  manifesta- 
tion of  one  form  of  force  without  the  corresponding  expendi- 
ture of  some  other  form  of  force,  I  for  a  long  time  searched 
in  vain  for  evidence  of  any  force  or  power  being  used  up  in 
the  production  of  these  results. 

"  Now,  however, . . .  after  witnessing  the  painful  state  of 
nervous  and  bodily  prostration  in  which  some  of  these  ex- 
periments have  left  Mr.  Home — after  seeing  him  lying  in 
an  almost  fainting  condition  on  the  floor,  pale  and  speechless — 
I  could  scarcely  doubt  that  the  evolution  of  psychic  force  is 
accompanied  by  a  corresponding  drain  on  vital  force."  [The 
reader  will  remember  the  similar  cases  already  given.  H.H.] 
"  I  have  ventured  to  give  this  new  force  the  name  of  Psychic 
Force,  because  of  its  manifest  relationship  to  certain  psycho- 
logical conditions." 

He   farther   quoted   several   eminent  men   of   science  as 


Ch.  VIII]  Bartldt's  Life  of  Foster  111 

having  reached  by  experiment  conclusions  similar  to  his  own, 
of  whom  one,  31.  Thury,  Professor  at  the  Academy  of  Geneva, 
had,  as  early  as  1855,  proposed  for  the  newly  manifested  force 
the  name  ectenic,  because  it  acted  in  ezterno — at  a  distance, 
without  contact. 

Since  then,  however,  the  name  telekinetic  seems  to  have 
been  settled  upon  by  common  use,  though  it  is  far  from  a 
fortunate  name:  for  several  forces  already  correlated  are 
telekinetic. 

At  the  dispersal  of  the  library  of  my  late  friend  Dr.  Richard 
Hodgson,  Secretary  of  the  American  Branch  of  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research,  there  came  into  my  possession  a  little 
book  now  out  of  print,  called  "The  Salem  Seer.  Reminis- 
cences of  Charles  H.  Foster,  by  George  C.  Bartlett."  The 
subject  of  this  book  was  very  well  known  from  about  1865 
to  1880.  He  traveled  freely  in  America,  England,  and 
Australia,  received  all  comers,  and  had  a  business  agent — 
the  author  of  the  little  book  referred  to. 

Thirty  years  ago  I  should  have  hesitated  to  quote  from 
this  book,  because  few  of  its  accounts  have  the  standard  of 
authenticity  then  considered  essential.  Of  most  of  the  events 
Mr.  Bartlett,  the  author,  who  was  generally  present,  is  the 
only  known  witness,  the  other  witnesses  generally  being  news- 
paper reporters  whose  names  are  not  given;  but  of  course 
the  presumption  is  that  they  saw  what  they  reported,  so  that 
the  testimony  approaches  very  close  to  the  standard  two 
mutually  confirmatory  witnesses,  and  some  of  it  is  highly 
intelligent.  Few  of  the  witnesses  were  professed  spiritualists, 
and  nearly  all  of  them  began  by  doubting.  Mr.  Bartlett  also 
quotes  not  a  few  who  continued  to  doubt,  and  gives  other 
evidence  of  his  own  sincerity.  His  book  was  probably  not 
composed  in  awe  of  literary  criticism,  but  is  ingenuous  to  a 
degree  that  encourages  confidence — not  the  most  "  scientific  " 
of  evidence;  but  the  skepticism  regarding  the  phenomena 
to-day  is  rather  regarding  their  alleged  spiritistic  source 
than  their  genuineness. 

In  regard  to  Mr.  Bartlett's  testimony,  moreover,  it  is  to 
be  said  that  he  is  still  living — at  Tolland,  Connecticut,  where 
he  enjoys  the  confidence  and  respect  of  his  neighbors,  and 


112  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

where,  though  he  has  about  reached  his  threescore  years  and  ten, 
he  is  much  given  to  playing  tennis.  We  have  exchanged  several 
letters,  and  he  called  upon  me  during  a  recent  visit  to  New 
York.  I  do  not  often  meet  a  man  who  inspires  me  with  as 
much  confidence  in  his  sincerity.  It  does  not  detract  from 
the  weight  of  his  evidence  that,  notwithstanding  the  marvels 
it  contains,  he  does  not  accept  the  spiritistic  solution. 

But  even  assuming  the  accounts  given  and  quoted  by  him 
to  be  unreliable,  they  describe  occurrences  so  much  like  many 
later  ones  which  have  been  abundantly  verified,  that  they  are 
almost  as  safe  to  reason  or  guess  from. 

It  is  further  to  be  said  that  the  evidence  now  necessary 
to  make  one  of  these  stories  worth  attention,  is  small  beside 
what  was  necessary  before  the  S.  P.  E.  had  accumulated  such 
overwhelming  evidence  of  similar  occurrences.  Now  the  bur- 
den of  proof  is  rather  on  those  who  deny  than  on  those  who 
assert.  I  find  that  those  who  deny  are  almost  invariably 
those  who  never  saw  the  phenomena  at  all.  So  true  is  this, 
that  now  when  I  find  anybody  vociferously  denying  the  pos- 
sibility of  such  things,  and  ask  him  if  he  ever  saw  any 
manifestation  of  them  from  accredited  agents,  I  expect  a 
negative  answer,  and  am  seldom  disappointed.  I  have  met 
people  who  say :  "  Oh,  Foster  is  entirely  discredited,"  and 
so  far,  not  one  of  them  had  ever  seen  a  manifestation  of  the 
strange  powers  from  him  or  anybody  else. 

Mr.  Bartlett  says  that  Foster  spent  a  long  time  with 
Bulwer,  and  was  the  original  of  "  Margrane  "  in  A  Strange 
Story. 

Bartlett  says  (op.  cit.,  24,  38,  49) : 

"  Mediums  who  can  easily  become  entranced,  or  be  controlled 
successfully  by  this  mysterious  influence,  can  as  easily  be  con- 
trolled by  their  associates  in  this  life If  their  associations  are 

in  the  higher  and  better  walks  of  life,  their  lives  will  average 
well.  On  the  contrary,  if  they  are  associated  with  the  immoral, 
they  are  easily  led  down  the  stream.  It  has  been  my  observation 
that  when  a  man  or  woman  has  been  controlled  by  these  peculiar 
influences,  they  are  inclined  to  be  weak,  dissipated,  and  im- 
moral. They  are  almost  invariably  kind-hearted,  generous,  and 
childlike." 

Those  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  investigated  by  the 
S.  P.  K.  have  been  very  decent  people, — perhaps  partly  from 


Ch.  VIII]       Fosters  Character  and  Heredity  113 

being  in  such  good  company,  and  some  of  the  heteromatic 
writers  of  the  very  highest  character  and  attainments.  Bart- 
lett  goes  on : 

"  It  has  been  said,  '  Money  flowed  into  his  coffers  like  water, 
and  as  freely  flowed  out,  leaving  nothing  behind.'  I  wish  to 
state  most  emphatically  that  not  a  dollar  did  Mr.  Foster  squan- 
der in  gambling While  he  had  many  faults,  gambling  was 

not  one  of  them.  He  did  not  even  know  the  Ace  of  Spades  from 
the  Queen  of  Hearts  "  [which  is  much  more  than  can  be  said  of 
the  researchers  into  Thought  Transference — or  of  the  present 
writer  on  these  profundities.  H.H.]. 

Bartlett  continues: 

"  Foster  stood  apart  from  all  men While  he  was  like  others 

he  was  also  peculiarly  unlike  all  others.  He  was  extravagantly 
dual.  He  was  not  only  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  but  he  repre- 
sented half-a-dozen  different  Jekylls  and  Hydes He  was  an 

unbalanced  genius,  and  at  times,  I  should  say,  insane.  He  had 
a  heart  so  large  indeed  that  it  took  in  the  world :  tears  for  the 
afflicted;  money  for  the  poor;  the  chords  of  his  heart  were 
touched  by  every  sigh.  At  other  times,  his  heart  shrunk  up 
until  it  disappeared.  He  would  . . .  with  the  petulance  of  a  child 
. . .  abuse  his  best  friends.  He  wore  out  many  of  his  friends. . . . 
He  was  not  vicious,  but  absolutely  uncontrollable.  He  would 
go  his  own  way,  which  way  was  often  the  wrong  way.  Like  a 
child  he  seemed  to  have  no  forethought.  He  seemed  to  live  for 

to-day,  caring  nothing  for  to-morrow He  seemed  impervious 

to  the  opinions  of  others,  and  apparently  yielded  to  every  desire; 
but  after  all  he  did  not  abuse  himself  much,  as  he  continued  in 
perfect  health  until  the  final  breaking  up." 

The  sort  of  stock  he  came  of  is  interestingly  indicated  by 
Bartlett  (op.  cit.,  44-5) : 

"  The  next  day  we  left  for  Salem.  Mr.  Foster's  father  was 
a  particularly  kind  and  pleasing  man,  without  guile,  and  in 
his  younger  days  followed  the  sea.  We  were  sitting  together 
one  morning . . .  [when]  he  remarked  that  he  had  passed  a 
bad  night.  ...I  inquired  what  was  the  matter?  He  replied 
that  Aunt  Bessie  had  annoyed  him  and  mother  (his  wife) 
all  night.  I  replied  that  I  had  heard  Charles  speak  frequently 
of  Aunt  Bessie,  but  I  had  supposed  she  had  died  some  years 
ago.  '  Oh,  yes,'  he  said,  '  but  she  keeps  coming  back  at  night ; 
goes  in  and  out  of  our  room,  pulls  open  the  bureau  drawers, 
and  fusses  over  her  old  things.'  He  continued,  'We  have 
asked  her  repeatedly  to  keep  away,  and  not  disturb  us  while 
we  were  sleeping,  but  every  little  while  she  comes  back  and 
makes  a  night  of  it.'  Very  innocently  he  said  to  me,  '  Do  you 


114  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

not  see  spirits?'  'Why  no,'  I  said,  'certainly  not.'  He  re- 
plied that  he  did,  and  that  he  supposed  every  one  did.  That 
his  family  had  ever  since  he  could  remember,  and  that  he  did 
not  suppose  his  family  differed  in  that  respect  from  other 
families.  I  certainly  think  he  was  perfectly  sincere,  and  that 
he  saw  visions.  His  wife,  Mrs.  Foster,  mother  of  Charles, 
told  me  she  had  talked  with  spirits  all  her  life,  and  that  her 
mother  and  father  also  conversed  with  them.  She  said  when 
Charles  was  a  baby  that  she  was  too  poor  to  hire  a  girl,  and 
having  to  do  her  own  work  her  spirit  friends  often  came  to 
her  assistance,  and  that  they  had  often  rocked  Charlie's  cradle 
~by  the  hour.  To  hear  them  speak  of  the  other  life,  and  of 
their  communications  with  those  who  had  passed  to  the  other 
shore,  made  the  intercourse  between  the  two  worlds  seem  as 
real  as  between  Europe  and  America." 

This  is  telekinesis  with  a  vengeance.  I  incline  to  assume 
that  Mrs.  Foster  supplied  the  force.  That  assumption  may 
not  appear  so  strange  later,  as  it  does  now. 

I  had  a  seance  with  Foster  in  the  early  seventies,  which 
will  be  described  later  under  Telepathy.  At  that  seance  there 
were  no  phenomena  of  the  mysterious  force  that  had  been  ex- 
hibited before  me  by  P ,  but  there  were  other  phenomena 

even  more  remarkable,  and  I  was  impressed  that  Foster  was 
honest,  and  had  powers  beyond  the  recognized  normal. 

Of  virtually  all  the  strange  kinds  of  phenomena  that  we 
shall  meet,  there  are  many  well  authenticated  instances  on 
record.  In  selecting  typical  ones,  I  shall  sometimes  venture 
to  select  Foster's,  so  far  as  they  cover  the  ground,  despite 
his  being  a  "  paid  medium "  (as,  for  that  matter,  is  Mrs. 
Piper),  and  despite  his  manifestations  having  transpired  too 
early  to  be  passed  upon  by  the  S.  P.  R.,  or  any  other  authori- 
tative body.  At  the  same  time,  I  don't  ask  anybody  to  believe 
everything  in  them :  even  regarding  some  of  the  very  passages 
I  quote,  my  own  judgment  is  certainly  very  much  in  reserve. 

I  shall  take  more  illustrations  from  Foster  than  I  otherwise 
would,  for  the  additional  reason  that  the  testimony  regard- 
ing other  leading  "  mediums  "  is  easily  accessible  elsewhere, 
while  that  regarding  Foster  is  not ;  also  because  I  know  from 
personal  observation,  if  I  know  anything,  that  he  showed  to 
me  some  of  the  powers  as  yet  called  supernormal;  I  wish 
anybody  disposed  to  scout  my  quoting  a  book  perhaps  pur- 
posely neglected  by  more  competent  writers,  might  read  it. 


Ch.  VIII]  Foster's  Molar  TeleUnesis  115 

This  is  quoted  by  Bartlett  (op.  cit,  p.  112)  from  Ash- 
burner's  Notes  and  Studies  in  the  Philosophy  of  Animal 
Magnetism  and  Spiritualism,  in  which  are  many  references 
to  Foster.  The  phenomena  took  place  without  Foster  being 
in  contact  with  the  objects. 

"  The  table  was  lifted  into  the  air,  and  remained  there  for 
some  seconds.  Then,  it  gently  descended  into  the  place  it  had 
before  occupied,  with  the  difference  that  the  top  was  turned 

downwards,  and  rested  on  the  carpet Some  busts,  as  large 

as  life,  resting  upon  book-cupboards  seven  feet  high,  were  taken 
from  their  places.  One  was  suddenly  put  upon  Mrs.  W.  C.'s  lap; 
others,  on  my  obtaining  a  light,  were  found  on  the  table." 

The  very  simple  molar  phenomena  already  described  are 
among  the  first  of  a  series  which  merge,  as  do  all  things 
in  nature,  by  insensible  degrees  into  something  very  different 
— in  this  case  into  psychical  phenomena.  The  course  of  this 
merging  which  I  shall  try  to  follow  in  the  treatment  (though 
the  topics  are  so  mixed  with  each  other  that  so  doing 
is  not  always  possible)  is  molar-physical;  molecular-physical 
— including  materialization  and  levitation;  molar-psychical, 
including  alleged  communications  by  moving  heavy  ob- 
jects; molecular-psychical,  including  alleged  communications 
through  raps,  lights,  and  sounds. 

This  will  eventually  bring  us  into  the  psychic  universe, 
where  we  will  unroll  a  fresh  chart. 

First  a  few  more  cases  of  molar  telekinesis: 

From  Bartlett  (op.  cit.,  112) : 

"  About  12  o'clock  one  summer  night  we  met  Oregon  Wilson 
and  one  or  two  friends  on  Broadway.  Mr.  Wilson,  as  usual, 
was  in  a  lively  frame  of  mind,  and  insisted  upon  our  going 
to  his  studio  to  look  at  some  new  curios. . . .  This,  however, 
was  only  a  pretext,  as  his  real  object  was  to  induce  Mr. 

Foster  to  give  some  physical  manifestations He  had  often 

tried  to  persuade  Mr.  Foster  to  give  him  and  his  friends 
a  dark  seance;  but  Mr.  Foster  had  always  refused.  We  had 
been  in  the  studio  a  few  moments  only  when  Mr.  Wilson 
turned  off  the  gas  without  giving  any  warning,  and  we  were 
in  utter  darkness.  What  occurred  that  night  will  not  be  for- 
gotten by  any  of  us,  for  it  seemed  for  a  few  moments  as 
though  the  world  had  come  to  an  end;  that  the  building  had 
been  blown  up  by  dynamite,  or  that  an  earthquake  was  upon 
us!  It  seemed  as  though  everything  in  the  studio  would  be 
broken  and  ruined.  Even  I  was  frightened,  for  it  seemed  as 


116  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

though  there  was  danger  of  being  hurt.  We  simultaneously 
said,  '  Wilson,  light  the  gas/  and  when  the  gas  was  lighted, 
we  found  only  a  few  things  disarranged;  and  it  is  a  mystery 
to  this  day  how  to  account  for  the  hurlubrelu.  Poor  Foster 
was  faint.  He  could  hardly  stand,  was  pale  as  death,  and 
there  was  a  cold  perspiration  on  his  forehead."  [Compare 
this  with  P 's  and  Miss  A.'s  exhaustion  after  their  mani- 
festation. We  shall  meet  many  similar  experiences.  H.  H.] 
..."  I  know  positively  that  no  amount  of  money  would  induce 
Mr.  Foster  to  sit  in  the  dark  for  the  purpose  of  producing 
physical  manifestations.  He  did  not  wish  to  stand  the  pressure, 
and  while  we  might  say  his  reason  was  not  afraid,  his  heart 


This  matter  of  the  light  may  be  of  much  importance.  / 
do  not  recall  another  case  where  darkness  has  caused  the 
medium  suffering,  but  on  the  other  hand,  all  through  the 
literature  of  the  subject  there  seems  some  incompatibility 
between  light  and  the  phenomena.  The  incompatibility  is 
obvious  where  fraud  is  attempted,  but  many  experiences  be- 
sides Foster's  look  as  if  there  were  some  reason  better  than 
fraud.  Light  is  by  no  means  always  inimical:  it  was  not 
in  my  experience  or  my  sister's,  or  in  many,  perhaps  most, 
of  those  connected  with  the  supposedly  honest  "mediums." 

Sir  William  Crookes  says  (op.  cit.,  p.  85) : 

"It  is  a  well-ascertained  fact  that  when  the  force  is  weak, 
a  bright  light  exerts  an  interfering  action  on  some  of  the 
phenomena.  The  power  possessed  by  Mr.  Home  is  sufficiently 
strong  to  withstand  this  antagonistic  influence;  consequently, 
he  always  objects  to  darkness  at  his  seances.  Indeed,  except 
on  two  occasions,  when,  for  some  particular  experiments  of 
my  own,  light  was  excluded,  everything  which  I  have  witnessed 
with  him  has  taken  place  in  the  light.  I  have  had  many 
opportunities  of  testing  the  action  of  light  of  different  sources 
and  colors,  such  as  sunlight,  diffused  daylight,  moonlight, 
gas,  lamp,  and  candle  light,  electric  light  from  a  vacuum 
tube,  homogeneous  yellow  light,  etc.  The  interfering  rays 
appear  to  be  those  at  the  extreme  end  of  the  spectrum." 

Bartlett  gives  another  astounding  account  of  telekinesis 
(op.  tit.,  44)  : 

"  The  day  before  Mr.  Foster  left  for  his  summer  home  in 
Salem,  Mass.,  he  purchased  two  empty  champagne  baskets  for 
the  purpose  of  packing  therein  his  extra  luggage.  We  were 
both  awakened  that  night . . .  there  was  a  terrible  commotion. 


Ch.  VIII]  Podmore.  Poltergeists  11? 

The  champagne  baskets  commenced  running  around  the  room. 
They  flew  up  in  the  air,  crashing  against  each  other, . . .  and 
in  shorter  time  than  it  takes  to  relate  it,  all  the  chairs  'were 
piled  upon  our  bed.  No  harm  was  done,  however." 

The  bell-ringing  on  page  104  and  Foster's  champagne 
baskets  and  the  racket  in  Wilson's  studio  remind  one  of  the 
alleged  performances  of  the  poltergeists  (riotous  ghosts)  of 
which  the  literature  of  the  subject  is  full.  An  interesting 
collection,  with  criticisms,  is  given  by  Mr.  Podmore  in  Pr. 
XII,  45ff.* 

Poltergeists  have  been  regarded  with  much  skepticism,  but 
as  the  phenomena  attributed  to  them  are  more  and  more 
noticed  to  happen  only  when  certain  individuals  (mediums?) 
are  present,  the  doings  are  likely  to  find  a  place  under 
recognized  telekinetic  phenomena.  It  may  even  be  granted 

that  my  friend  P was  a  "polterer"  when  he  (or  we?) 

broke  the  music-stand,  and  Foster  certainly  was  when  he  had 
the  rackets  just  recounted.  In  fact,  telekinetic  manifesta- 
tions shade  off  from  simple  table-tippings  to  those  alleged 
wild  riots  of  flying  objects  of  all  sorts.  There  is,  however,  a 
pretty  definite  class  of  these  latter  occurring  generally  in  the 

*  And  here  let  me  introduce  Mr.  Podmore.  He  was  among  the  most 
active  of  the  8.  P.  It.,  and  from  the  first  till  his  death  in  1911  the  skep- 
tical critic.  His  principal  works  are  Modern  Spiritualitm  (1902)  and 
The  Newer  Spiritualitm  (1911),  largely  a  repetition  of  the  former.  But, 
despite  their  titles,  the  author  was  no  spiritualist. 

Like  Myers'  great  book,  to  be  described  later,  these  digest  the  Pr.  8. 
P.  R.,  but  not  nearly  so  completely,  and  they  go  farther  into  the  early 
phenomena  kindred  to  those  there  recounted.  He  also  published 
8t'tdit«  in  Psychical  Hetenrch.  Apparition*  and  Thought  Trantference, 
and  Naturalization  of  the  Supernatural,  and  contributed  very  volumi- 
nously to  the  Pr.  8.  P.  R.  In  the  consistories  where  attempts  have  been 
made  to  give  the  sanctity  of  spiritualism  to  our  phenomena,  he  steadily 
bore  the  part  of  devil's  advocate,  and  be  performed  it  with  rare  labori- 
ousness,  conscientiousness,  and  skill.  Being  human,  he  did  not  entirely 
rise  superior  to  bias.  Up  to  his  death,  however,  his  skepticism  was 
gradually  giving  way.  his  last  noteworthy  expression,  near  the  end  of 
The  Newer  Spiritualitm,  beintr :  "If  we  reject,  for  the  present,  at  any 
rate,  the  explanation  ...  of  communication  from  the  dead  .  .  .  there 
remains  only  the  agency  which  has  been  provisionally  named  tele- 
pathy." He  puts  telekinesis  and  telepsychosis  in  the  same  boat,  as  the 
work  of  alleged  spirits,  while  in  my  opinion  the  indications  that  tele- 
kinesis has  anything  to  do  with  spirits,  except  as  all  consciousness  and 
all  force  may  be  one,  are  not  worth  considering,  while  the  indications 
that  some  telepsychoses  have  to  do  with  postcarnate  intelligence,  are 
•well  worth  considering. 


118  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

presence  of  the  uneducated,  starting  with  the  pranks  of 
children  or  servants,  and  upsetting  the  judgment  and  exciting 
the  imagination  of  superstitious  and  excitable  people  who 
tell  wondrous  stories,  and  whose  excitement  reacts  upon  and 
stimulates  the  original  perpetrators. 

The  next  medium  from  whom  I  shall  draw  some  illustra- 
tions possessed,  of  all  yet  known,  the  greatest  combination  of 
high  gifts  with  high  privileges  of  education,  social  opportunity, 
and  social  endorsement.  I  refer  to  William  Stainton  Moses. 
I  go  into  considerable  detail  regarding  him,  as  he  will  appear 
in  our  investigations  more  frequently  and,  on  the  whole,  with 
perhaps  more  importance,  than  either  Foster  or  Home.  And 
yet  by  an  irony  of  fate,  the  testimony  to  his  manifestations  is 
perhaps  less  satisfactory  than  in  the  case  of  the  others.  He  led 
a  very  retired  life  and  had  few  sitters,  though  they  were  of  high 
character.  The  accounts  of  his  experiences  are  mainly  in  his 
own  note-books,  and  are  so  marvelous,  but  at  the  same  time 
so  apparently  honest,  and  so  well  vouched  for,  that  one  is 
sometimes  tempted  to  think:  Perhaps  he  dreamt  it.  And  yet 
his  part  in  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.,  whether  for  or  against  spiritism, 
is  too  important  to  ignore.  The  following  particulars  are 
condensed  from  an  account  by  F.  W.  H.  Myers  * : 

*  Myers  was  perhaps,  up  to  his  death  in  1901.  the  most  active  con- 
tributor to  the  Pr.  8.  P.  R.,  and  his  alleged  spirit  has  been  very  active 
since.  He  left  a  work  which  many  regard  as  monumental,  called 
Human  Personality  and  Its  Survival  of  Bodily  Death.  This  work  di- 
gested the  fourteen  volumes  of  Proceedings  which  had  then  accumu- 
lated. Its  interpretations  are  frankly  spiritistic,  and  it  is  constructive 
rather  than  critical:  in  fact,  the  author  is  often  charged  with  having,  in 
matters  of  evidence,  entirely  subordinated  the  critical  sense  to  his  spirit- 
istic convictions.  He  must  at  least  have  felt  a  temptation  that  I  have 
felt  in  the  present  work,  and  sometimes  yielded  to,  to  admit  question- 
able evidence  pretty  freely  when  it  accords  with  established  evidence, 
but  keeping  the  reader  fairly  apprised  of  its  nature,  and  letting  him 
judge  it  for  himself.  Myers  was  no  mean  scholar  and  poet,  and  the 
beautiful  style  of  his  magnum  opus  often  breeds  a  concurrence  that 
its  unassisted  arguments  might  not  always  sustain. 

This  book  is  much  the  most  thorough  and  elaborate  of  all  the  text 
writings  from  the  S.  P.  R  evidence.  It  so  arranges  all  the  matter  as 
to  build  up  a  systematic  argument  for  the  survival  of  the  personality. 
Podmore's  works  constitute  a  running  commentary  upon  the  Pr.  S.  P. 
R..  with  extracts  from  the  beginning  through  Vol.  XXIV,  which  was 
the  last  published  before  his  death.  Myers'  book  goes  only  through 
Vol.  XIV. 


Ch.  VIII]  W.  Stainton  Moses  119 

Moses  was  born  in  England  in  1839,  of  an  old  Lincolnshire 
family  (not,  as  the  name  suggests,  a  Jewish  one).  His 
father  had  been  headmaster  of  a  grammar  school.  The  boy 
was  given  to  sleep-walking  and  writing  essays — good  ones  for 
a  boy — in  his  sleep.  Though  fairly  robust,  he  broke  down 
in  health  at  Oxford,  and  left  without  graduating.  During 
some  time  of  wandering  he  spent  six  months  in  a  monastery 
on  Mount  Athos.  He  regained  his  health,  returned  to  Oxfor'd, 
took  his  degree,  was  ordained,  and  at  twenty-four  became  a 
curate  on  the  Isle  of  Man.  From  '63  to  '70  he  was  a  good 
and  self-sacrificing  clergyman,  beloved  by  his  people,  when 
an  attack  of  whooping  cough  interfered  with  his  preaching, 
which  he  relinquished  permanently.  He  took  a  mastership 
in  University  College  School  and  held  it  for  nearly  twenty 
years  till  his  health  broke  down  finally  about  1889.  He 
died  in  1892. 

Myers  says  (Pr.  IX,  250  et  seq.) : 

"  The  physical  phenomena  about  to  be  described  began  in 
1872,  and  continued  with  gradually  lessening  frequency  until 
1881.  The  automatic  script  began  in  1873,  and  finally  died  out, 
so  far  as  we  know,  in  1883.  During  these  later  years  Mr. 
Hoses  was  active  in  contributing  to,  and  afterwards  in  edit- 
ing, the  weekly  newspaper  Light;  and  he  took  a  leading  part 
in  several  spiritistic  organizations.  Of  one  of  these — the  Lon- 
don Spiritualist  Alliance — he  was  president  at  the  time  of  his 
death.  In  1882  he  aided  in  the  foundation  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research;  but  he  left  that  body  in  1886,  on  account 
of  its  attitude  towards  Spiritualism,  which  he  regarded  as 
unduly  critical.  It  is  worth  remarking  that  although,  as  the 
fact  of  his  withdrawal  shows,  many  members  of  the  Society 
held  an  intellectual  position  widely  differing  from  that  of 
Mr.  Moses,  and  although  his  own  published  records  were  of 
a  kind  not  easily  credible,  no  suspicion  as  to  his  personal 
probity  and  veracity  was  ever,  so  far  as  I  know,  either  expressed 
or  entertained. 

"  Mr.  Moses  never  married,  and  went  very  little  into  general 
society.  His  personal  appearance  offered  no  indication  of  his 
peculiar  gift.  He  was  of  middle  stature,  strongly  made,  with 

somewhat  heavy  features,  and  thick  dark  hair  and  beard 

His  expression  of  countenance  was  honest,  manly,  and  reso- 
lute  " 


120  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

"  Dr.  Johnson,  of  Bedford,  writes  to  me : 

"68,  High-street,  Bedford. 

"March  24th,  1893. 

"  Dear  Sir, — As  the  intimate  friend  and  medical  adviser 
of  the  late  Stainton  Moses  I  have  had  ample  opportunities  of 
thoroughly  knowing  his  character  and  his  mental  state. 

"  He  was  a  man  even  in  temper,  painstaking  and  methodi- 
cal, of  exceptional  ability,  and  utterly  free  from  any  halluci- 
nation or  anything  to  indicate  other  than  a  well-ordered 

brain 

"I  have  attended  him  in  several  very  severe  illnesses,  but 
never,  in  sickness  or  at  other  times,  has  his  brain  shown  the 
slightest  cloudiness  or  suffered  from  any  delusion. 

"WM.  G.  JOHNSON." 

"  University  College  School,  Gower-street,  London,  W.  C. 

"May  16th,  1893. 

"  Dear  Sir, — ...  He  always  impressed  me  with  the  idea  that 
he  was  thoroughly  earnest  and  conscientious,  and  I  believe  that 
perfect  reliance  can  be  placed  on  all  his  statements. — Yours 
faithfully,  "  F.  W.  LEVANDER." 

Myers  says  elsewhere  (Pr.  IX,  253)  : 

"  I  have  heard  him  described  as  lacking  in  the  grace  of  humil- 
ity, and  in  that  spirituality  of  tastes  and  character  which 
should  seem  appropriate  to  one  living  much  in  the  commerce 
of  the  Unseen.  But  I  have  never  heard  anyone  who  had  even 
the  slightest  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Moses  impugn  his  sanity 
or  his  sincerity,  his  veracity  or  his  honor 

"  With  the  even  tenor  of  this  straightforward  and  reputable 
life  was  inwoven  a  chain  of  mysteries  which,  as  I  have  before 
said,  in  what  way  soever  they  be  explained,  make  that  life  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  which  our  century  has  seen 

"  For  almost  all  the  sittings  which  -he  describes,  and  for 
some  which  he  does  not  describe,  there  is ...  a  second  de- 
tailed, independent,  contemporary  record,  by  Mrs.  Stanhope 
Speer,  and  for  many  of  the  sittings  a  third  record,  also 
independent  and  contemporaneous,  although  very  brief, 
by  Dr.  Speer.  For  some  few  of  them  there  is  also  a  sim- 
ilar record  by  Mr.  Percival,  whose  memory  also  confirms 
the  other  accounts.  Parts  of  Mr.  Moses'  own  record,  indeed, 
are  avowedly  derived  from  the  other  sitters,  since  he  depended 
upon  them  for  information  as  to  what  went  on  when  he  was 
in  trance.  But  he  has  always,  I  think,  made  this  distinction 
clear  in  his  notes. 

"  The  evidence  for  all  the  incidents  is  practically  the  same ; — 
the  whole  group  of  witnesses  are  as  fully  pledged,  say  to  the 
falling  of  pearls  from  the  air  as  to  the  automatic  script  or  the 
trance-phenomena.,  I  at  least  can  see  no  via  media  which  can 


Ch.  V1I1J    Evidence  regarding  Moses.    His  Character     121 

be  plausibly  taken.  The  permanent  fraud  of  the  whole  group, 
or  the  substantial  accuracy  of  all  the  records,  are  the  only 
hypotheses  which  seem  to  me  capable  of  covering  the  facts. 

*  Some  dozen  other  persons,  who  cannot  plausibly  be  held 
to  be  all  in  the  fraud,  witnessed  the  phenomena.  It  is  true 
that  some  of  these  witnesses  are  now  dead  or  inaccessible. 
But  Serjeant  Cox  left  a  printed  statement;  Dr.  Thomson,  of 
Clifton,  proved  his  belief  by  continued  collaboration;  Mr. 
Percival,  Mrs.  Garratt,  Miss  Collins,  and  Mrs.  Honeywood 
are  still  living,  and  cannot  with  any  plausibility  be  treated 
as  accomplices.  Mr.  Percival's  evidence,  in  particular,  is  that 
of  an  outside  and  occasional  member  of  the  group,  who  is 
honorably  known  in  academic  and  official  life,  and  who  would 
have  had  everything  to  lose  and  nothing  to  gain  by  complicity 
in  such  a  fraud. 

" [Moses]  was  very  reticent  about  exhibiting  his  powers, 

and  consequently  almost  the  only  records  are  his  own  and 
those  of  his  physician,  Dr.  Stanhope  Speer,  Mrs.  Speer,  and 
their  son,  Mr.  Charlton  T.  Speer,  Associate  of  the  Royal  Acad- 
emy of  Music — all  persons  of  undoubted  capacity  and  pro- 
bity  

"  Dr.  Speer's  cast  of  mind  was  thoroughly  materialistic,  and 
it  is  remarkable  that  his  interest  in  Mr.  Moses'  phenomena 
was  from  first  to  last  of  a  purely  scientific,  as  contrasted  with 
an  emotional  or  religious  nature." 

In  another  place,  however,  Myers  says  of  Moses  (Pr.  VIII, 
599) : 

"  He  lacked— and  he  readily  and  repeatedly  admitted  to  me 
that  he  lacked — all  vestige  of  scientific,  or  even  of  legal,  instinct. 
The  very  words  '  first-hand  evidence,'  '  contemporary  record,' 
'  corroborative  testimony,'  were  to  him  as  a  weariness  to  the 
flesh.  His  attitude  was  that  of  the  preacher  who  is  already 
so  thoroughly  persuaded  in  his  own  mind  that  he  treats  any 
alleged  fact  which  falls  in  with  his  views  as  the  uncriticised 

text  for  fresh  exhortation Having  watched  his  conduct  at 

critical  moments,  I  see  much  ground  for  impugning  his  judg- 
ment, but  no  ground  whatever  for  doubting  that  he  has  narrated 
with  absolute  good  faith  the  story  of  his  experience." 

(Pr.IX,258) :  "  The  phenomena  here  to  be  described,  strange 
...  as  they  often  seem,  cannot  be  called  meaningless.  The  alleged 
operators  are  at  pains  throughout  to  describe  what  they  re- 
garded as  the  end,  and  what  merely  as  the  means  to  that  end. 
Their  constantly  avowed  object  was  the  promulgation  through 
Mr.  Moses  of  certain  religious  and  philosophical  views;  and 
the  physical  manifestations  are  throughout  described  as  de- 
signed merely  as  a  proof  of  power,  and  a  basis  for  the 
authority  claimed  for  the  serious  teachings." 


122  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Ft.  I 

In  some  of  the  molecular  phenomena,  especially  those  of 
light,  as  will  be  seen  later,  the  claims  made  for  and  by 
Moses,  surpass  those  made  for  or  by  Foster  and  Home.  But 
the  molar  telekinetic  phenomena  were  not  as  prominent  with 
Moses  as  with  the  others,  or  as  his  molecular  phenomena; 
in  fact  he  records  his  dislike  "  to  violent  physical  manifesta- 
tions." More  on  this  subject  will  appear  later. 

Detailed  accounts  of  all  classes  are  given  by  Myers  in 
Pr.  IX  and  XI.  I  will  give  but  a  line  to  the  molar  in  the 
following  scraps  from  Moses'  note-books  (quoted  in  Pr.  XI, 
34  and  266) : 

"  As  soon  as  the  gas  was  put  out,  a  book  from  a  closed 
cupboard  at  the  corner  farthest  from  me,  and  immediately 
behind  Dr.  Speer,  was  brought  out  and  struck  him  on  the 
shoulder,  and  fell  near  Mrs.  S.  This  is  the  first  attempt  to 
bring  an  object  from  behind  a  sitter  opposite  to  me.  Usually 

the  power  seems  to  be  behind  me The  objects  come  over 

my  head  when  brought  into  the  room,  and  movements  of 
articles  occur  behind  and  near  me.  [Sounds  occur]  behind 
and  near  me  usually,  though  at  times . . .  far  away. 

"  My  records  of  seances  during  the  latter  half  of  the  month 
of  August  show  over  fifty  instances  in  which  objects  from 
different  parts  of  the  house  were  placed  upon  the  table  round 
which  we  were  sitting.  They  were  invariably  small,  and  were 
generally  thrown  on  the  table." 

The  records  of  Stainton  Moses  in  Pr.  IX,  269-72  contain 
accounts  of  his  having,  without  any  muscular  action,  brought 
from  unknown  sources  into  his  seance  rooms,  and  there  scat- 
tered, bits  of  coral,  seed  pearls,  powdered  musk,  and  some 
aerial  perfumes.  This  was  done  in  dim  light  and  sometimes 
with  the  "  cabinet "  of  the  fake  mediums.  But  the  character 
of  Moses  and  of  his  witnesses  makes  it  difficult  to  believe  the 
phenomena  fraudulent,  and  that  they  were  not  illusory  is 
proved,  I  understand,  by  some  of  the  articles  being  kept  by 
persons  present. 

Moses  quotes  Judge  Edmunds  in  his  book  on  Spiritualism, 
as  bearing  witness  to  odors  being  brought  into  "  spiritual " 
seances,  without  any  visible  mechanical  agency. 

Breezes  are  very  frequently  alleged  to  accompany  other  tele- 
kinetic  phenomena. 


CHAPTER  IX 

MOLAR  TELEKINESIS  (Continued) 
Dowsing 

UNDER  Molar  Telekinesis  I  venture  tentatively  to  include 
another  strange  mode  of  force  that  has  long  been  known,  but 
manifested,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  none  of  the  "  mediums  "  of 
other  modes  so  far  treated,  and  indeed  by  so  few  people  as  to 
be  little  credited.  It  appears  to  have  some  telekinetic  qualities. 

To  the  modern  mind,  it  may  seem  to  find  one  pole  in  the 
system  of  an  occasional  human  being,  and  the  other  in  one 
of  sundry  inorganic  substances,  including  especially  running 
water.  The  passing  of  the  current  between  the  two  poles 
is  not  always  dependent  on  any  intermediate  conductor,  any 
more  than  when  ordinary  magnetism  passes  between  two 
separated  pieces  of  iron,  or  telekinesis  between  a  medium 
(using  the  word  merely  as  medium  of  a  force,  not  of  any 
alleged  spiritual  communication)  and  an  untouched  object. 
But  these  alleged  manifestations  are  said  to  be  sometimes 
facilitated  by  a  rod  of  wood  or  metal  between  the  poles; 
and  indeed  to  be  with  some  "  mediums  "  sometimes  possible 
with  that  intermediary,  and  impossible  without  it. 

Note  here  the  fact  that  the  recognized  telekinetic  force 
seems  sometimes  to  have  its  non-human  pole  in  wood,  as  in 

P 's  case,  and  wooden-table-tipping  generally;  or  in 

mineral,  as  in  Miss  A.'s  marble-topped  table  and  others.  We 
shall  later  apparently  find  one  in  metal. 

Where  rods  of  wood  have  served  as  conductors,  the  force 
has  deflected  them  sometimes  strongly  enough  to  crack  or 
break  them.  To  the  person  participating,  the  flow  of  the 
current  has  generally,  but  not  always,  been  accompanied 
by  fatigue,  as  in  other  exercises  of  the  telekinetic  power,  and 
frequently  by  nausea  and  other  physical  discomforts,  appar- 
ently more  than  in  the  other  manifestations  of  the  power. 

Most  readers  have  anticipated  that  the  foregoing  para- 
graphs are  an  attempt  to  put  into  "scientific"  shape  the 
128 


124  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

performances  of  the  "  dowsers  "  who  for  centuries  have  been 
alleged  to  discover  springs  and  metals  underground. 

My  guess  at  the  kinship  of  the  phenomena  with  those  of 
telekinesis  is,  however,  as  will  be  explained  later,  at  variance 
with  the  guesses  of  some  of  the  theorists,  but  not  with  the 
impressions  of  nearly,  if  not  quite  all,  of  the  actors  and  most 
of  the  observers;  and  I  suspect  that  the  discoveries  reported 
in  the  Pr.  S.  P.  E.  have  materially  affected  the  later  guesses 
of  the  theorists. 

Now  the  above  allegations,  like  nearly  all  allegations  of 
things  unknown  to  general  experience,  have  very  properly 
been  flouted  by  the  vast  majority  of  laymen  who  have  not  wit- 
nessed the  occurrences,  and  accounted  for  by  some  scientists 
who  have,  on  various  hypotheses  less  probable  than  that  the 
phenomena  really  indicate  something  new.  But  that  fashion 
of  accounting  for  things  has  been  losing  popularity  since 
Edison,  Bell,  and  Marconi.  Dowsing,  however,  happens  to 
have  been  certified  to  by,  among  others,  so  eminent  a  physicist 
as  Professor  (now  Sir  William)  Barrett,  after  a  very  thorough 
investigation,  which  he  reported  in  Pr.  XIII  and  XV,  and 
by  other  eminent  men  of  science,  among  them  Dr.  Rossiter 
Raymond,  Secretary  of  the  American  Institute  of  Mining 
Engineers,  and  several  Fellows  of  the  Royal  and  Geographical 
Societies  of  England. 

Professor  Barrett  says  (Pr.  XIII,  2f.)  : 

"  At  first  sight  few  subjects  appear  to  be  so  unworthy  of 
serious  notice  and  so  utterly  beneath  scientific  investigation. 
. . .  Nevertheless,  it  is  impossible  to  read  the  voluminous  evi- 
dence, . . .  without  coming  to  the  conclusion  . . .  that  the  evidence 
for  the  success  of  '  dowsing '  as  a  practical  art  is  very  strong — 
and  there  seems  to  be  an  unexplained  residuum  when  all  possible 
deductions  have  been  made. 

"In  1814,  Dr.  C.  Hutton,  F.  R.  S.,  after  examining  the 
then  accessible  evidence . . .  and  witnessing  Lady  Milbanke's 
success  with  the  rod,  published  a  statement  of  his  own  be- 
lief in  the  practical  value  of  the  divining  rod,  though  un- 
able to  explain  its  behavior.  And  recently,  in  1883,  Dr.  R. 
Raymond  read  a  paper  before  the  American  Institute  of  Min- 
ing Engineers  in  which,  after  considerable  investigation,  the 
conclusion  is  arrived  at :  '  That  there  is  a  residuum  of  scientific 
value,  after  making  all  necessary  deductions  for  exaggeration, 
self-deception,  and  fraud.' 


Ch.  IX]         Sir  William  Barrett  on  Dowsing  125 

"In  like  manner,  it  is  impossible  to  study  this  subject 
historically  without  being  impressed  by  the  number  of  those 
who  have  accepted  as  indisputable  the  practical  value  of  the 
rod,  during  the  four  centuries  it  has  been  in  use. . . .  Among 
them  were  some  of  the  most  learned  writers  and  the  most 
painstaking  investigators  of  their  day,  together  with  an  array 
of  practical  miners  and  well-sinkers,  men  who  ought  to  have 
known  what  they  were  talking  about 

"  At  the  present  day,  as  in  the  past,  those  who  have  had 
the  opportunity  of  examining  most  closely  the  practical  use 
of  the  '  dowser's  art '  are  not  to  be  found  among  the  scoffers. 
The  opinion  expressed  to  me  by  many  well-informed  and 
critical  observers  who  live  in  that  region  of  the  southwest  of 
England  where  the  '  rod '  has  been  longest  in  use, ...  is  by  no 

means  contemptuous  or  even  unfavorable With  some,  like 

the  late  John  Mullins,  the  number  of  failures  seems  to  have  been 
very  few ;  with  others, . . .  far  more  frequent.  This  is  what  might 
be  expected  if  there  be  a  peculiar  instinct  or  faculty  in  certain 
persons  which  is  not  common  to  all.  Moreover,  as  an  easy  way 
of  earning  a  living  without  the  trouble  of  any  education,  the 
class  of  professional  dowsers  is  sure  to  be  recruited  by  a  number 
of  rogues  and  charlatans It  will  also  be  noticed  that  a  '  dows- 
ing faculty,'  if  such  there  be,  is  not  confined  to  any  particular 
age,  sex,  or  class  of  society.  Thus  in  case  No.  1,"  [as  num- 
bered in  Prof.  Barrett's  article.  H.H.]  "the  dowser  was  a 
clergyman;  in  No.  2,  a  judge;  in  No.  3,  a  local  manufacturer; 
in  Nos.  4,  13,  14,  18,  and  19,  a  lady;  in  Nos.  5  and  9,  a  gar- 
dener; in  No.  6,  a  deputy-lieutenant;  in  No.  8,  a  respected 
member  of  the  Society  of  Friends;  in  No.  12,  a  miller;  in 
No.  10,  a  little  girl;  in  Nos.  11  and  15,  a  boy;  in  No.  20,  a 

French  count,  etc In  the  lengthy  list  of  those  who  have 

employed  him  [Mullins]  to  find  water,  and  have  been  led  by 
actual  experience  to  have  faith  in  the  dowsing  rod,  will  be 
found  nearly  a  score  of  distinguished  noblemen,  more  than  a 
dozen  owners  of  breweries  and  distilleries,  or  of  paper  and 
cloth  mills  and  print  works;  town  commissioners,  and  clergy- 
men; and  landlords  and  their  agents  by  the  dozen." 

Professor  Barrett's  second  paper  says  (Pr.  XV,  136)  : 

"Upwards  of  200  cases  of  water-finding  by  dowsers  in 
recent  years  have  been  investigated;  in  each  case  the  inde- 
pendent evidence  of  disinterested  persons  . . .  was  sought.  Gen- 
erally speaking,  such  evidence  was  obtained,  the  witnesses 
allowing  their  names  and  addresses  to  be  given. . . .  Omitting 
a  remarkably  successful  series  of  cases  by  an  American  dowser, 
which  Dr.  Hodgson  kindly  investigated,  105  cases  of  British 
professional  dowsers  were  given  in  my  former  paper;  of  these 
95  were  successful  and  10  were  failures " 


126  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

Pr.  II  also  contains  confirmatory  papers  on  the  same  sub- 
ject by  Professor  W.  J.  Sollas  and  Messrs.  Edward  R.  Pease 
and  E.  Vaughan  Jenkins.  Mr.  Jenkins  collected  in  eighteen 
months  twenty-two  well  authenticated  cases  of  successful 
dowsing. 

"In  an  article  published  in  Light  for  August  4th,  1S83,  p. 
349,  it  is  stated  that  Professor  Lochman,  of  the  University  of 
Christiania,  who  is  described  as  a  distinguished  physiologist, 
recently  read  a  paper  on  the  divining  rod  before  a  scientific 
society  in  Christiania,  in  which  he  stated  that  his  skepticism 
on  this  subject  had  lately  been  overcome  by  the  discovery 
that  he  himself  could  use  the  rod  successfully " 

From  a  letter  to  Professor  Barrett  by  Mr.  H.  W.  Whitaker, 
a  well-known  geologist,  whom  Professor  Barrett  calls  "an 
utter  disbeliever  in  the  dowsing-rod,  or  in  any  practical  good 
resulting  from  its  use"  (Pr.  XIII,  75)  : 

"  John  Mullins, ...  if  allowed  to  follow  the  indication  of 
his  rod,  agreed,  I  understood,  to  receive  no  payment  for  sink- 
ing a  well  if  a  good  supply  of  water  were  not  obtained.  When 
one  remembers  the  heavy  outlay  involved  in  making  a  well, 
often  through  solid  rock  to  a  depth  of  70  to  100  feet,  or  more, 
this  agreement  is  a  forcible  illustration  of  the  faith  Mullins 
had  in  his  divining  rod " 

I  will  now  give  some  typical  cases.  The  Hon.  M.  E.  G. 
Finch  Hatton,  M.P.,  writes  thus  of  an  experience  with  Mullins 
(Pr.  II,  101)  : 

"23  Ennismore  Gardens,  S.  W.,  February  29th,  1884. 

"First  he  cut  a  forked  twig  from  a  living  tree,  and 
held  it  between  his  hands,  the  center  point  downwards  and 
the  two  ends  protruding  between  the  fingers  of  each  hand:  He 
then  stooped  forward  and  walked  over  the  ground  to  be  tried. 
Suddenly  he  would  stop  and  the  central  point  would  revolve 
in  a  half-circle  until  it  pointed  the  reverse  way.  This  he 
stated  to  be  owing  to  the  presence  of  a  subterranean  spring, 
and  further  that  by  the  strength  of  the  movement  he  could 
gage  the  approximate  depth. 

"  My  brother,  Hon.  Harold  Finch  Hatton,  and  I  each  took 
hold  of  one  of  the  ends,  protruding  as  stated  above,  and  held 
them  fast  while  the  phenomenon  took  place,  to  make  sure  that 
it  was  not  caused  by  a  movement,  voluntary  or  otherwise,  of 
the  man's  own  hand  or  fingers.  The  tendency  to  twist  itself, 
on  the  twig's  part,  was  so  great  that,  on  our  holding  firmly 


Ch.  IX]       John  and  H.  W.  Mullins,  Dowsers  127 

on  to  the  ends,  the  twig  split  and  finally  broke  off.  The  same 
thing  occurred  when  standing  on  a  bridge  over  a  running 
stream. 

"  Stagnant  water,  he  states,  has  no  effect  on  the  twig 

"  On  our  way  to  the  kitchen  garden  Mullins  discovered  a 
spring  on  the  open  lawn,  whose  existence  was  unknown  to 
me,  it  had  been  closed  in  so  long,  but  was  subsequently 
attested  by  an  old  laborer  on  the  place  who  remembered  it 
as  a  well,  and  had  seen  it  bricked  in  many  years  before.  On 
reaching  the  kitchen  garden  I  knew  that  a  lead  pipe,  leading 
water  to  a  tap  outside  the  wall,  crossed  the  gravel  path  at 
a  certain  spot.  On  crossing  it  the  twig  made  no  sign.  I  was 
astonished  at  first,  till  I  remembered  what  Mullins  had  said 
about  stagnant  water,  and  that  the  tap  was  not  running,  I 
sent  to  have  it  turned  on,  reconducted  Mullins  over  the 
ground,  when  the  twig  immediately  indicated  the  spot. 

"  When  Mullins  had  passed  on,  I  carefully  marked  the  exact 
spot  indicated  by  the  twig.  When  he  had  left  the  garden,  I 
said,  'Now,  Mullins,  may  we  blindfold  you  and  let  you  try?' 
He  said,  '  Oh  yes,  if  you  don't  lead  me  into  a  pond  or  any- 
thing of  that  sort.'  We  promised.  Several  skeptical  persons 
were  present  who  took  care  the  blindfolding  was  thoroughly 
done. 

"  I  then  reconducted  him,  blindfold,  to  the  marked  spot  by 
a  different  route,  leaving  the  tap  running,  with  the  result 
that  the  stick  indicated  with  mathematic  exactness  the  same 
spot.  At  first  he  slightly  overran  it  a  foot  or  so,  and  then 
felt  round,  as  it  were,  and  seemed  to  be  led  back  into  the 
exact  center  of  influence  by  the  twig.  All  present  considered 
the  trial  entirely  conclusive  of  two  things:  First,  of  the  man's 
perfect  good  faith.  Secondly,  that  the  effect  produced  on  the 
twig  emanated  from  an  agency  outside  of  himself,  and  ap- 
peared due  to  the  presence  of  running  water. 

"  My  brother,  Mr.  Harold  Finch  Hatton,  is  present  as  I 
write,  and  confirms  what  I  say one  of  the  Misses  Words- 
worth tried  the  twig,  and  was  surprised  to  find  that  an  influence 
of  a  similar  nature,  though  not  so  strong,  was  imparted  to 
it 

(Pr.  XIII,  89) :  "  The  Lincolnshire  Chronicle  of  June  8th, 
1895,  contains  a  long  report  of  a  visit  of  Mr.  H.  W.  Mullins, 
the  son  of  John  Mullins,  to  Catley  Abbey.  The  newspaper 
report,  which  I  have  abridged,  is  as  follows : — 

" '  It  was  told  to  Mullins  that  his  father  asserted  the  seltzer 
spring  flowed  under  a  hedge  on  the  other  side  of  the  field,  in 
which  we  were  then  standing,  and  he  was  asked  to  indicate 

the  place He  had  gone  about  100  yards  when  the  twig 

began  to  play,  and  digging  his  heel  in  the  ground,  he  thus 
marked  the  spot.  Mr.  Allen,  who  was  present  when  Mullins,  Sr., 
also  located  the  spring,  sent  a  man  for  a  spade,  and  a  stake 


128  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

was  dug  up,  which  eight  years  ago  was  driven  in  by  Mr.  Allen 
to  mark  the  place.  Mullins,  Jr.,  had  touched  the  spot  exactly.' " 

From  Mr.  E.  Vaughan  Jenkins  (Pr.  II,  106) : 

"  October  7th,  1882. 

"  About  thirty  years  ago  I  purchased  a  plot  of  land  on  a 
hill  slope  two  acres  in  extent  whereon  to  erect  a  residence 
of  considerable  value 

"  The  '  knowing  ones '. . .  did  not  consider  there  was  the  least 
possible  chance  of  water  being  obtained  on  the  plot  of  land  any- 
where. In  this  dilemma,  the  foreman  of  the  masons,  a  native 
of  Devon  or  Cornwall — I  forget  which — exclaimed,  '  Why  don't 
you  try  the  divining  rod? '. .  .He  said  his  little  boy,  eleven  years 

old,  possessed  the  power  in  a  remarkable  degree The  lad,  an 

honest,  innocent,  and  nice-looking  little  fellow, . . .  placing  the 
ends  of  the  rod  between  the  thumb  and  forefinger  of  each  hand, 
bending  it  slightly  and  holding  it  before  him  at  a  short  distance 
from  the  ground,  started  on  his  expedition,  I  and  others  follow- 
ing him  and  watching  every  movement  closely.  After  going  up 
and  down,  crossing  and  re-crossing  the  ground  several  times, 
but  never  on  the  same  lines,  the  lad  stopped,  and,  to  our 
great  surprise,  we  saw  the  rod  exhibit  signs  of  motion,  the 
fingers  and  thumbs  being  perfectly  motionless.  The  motion 
or  trembling  of  the  rod  increasing,  it  slowly  began  to  revolve, 
then  at  an  accelerated  pace,  fairly  twisting  itself  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  lad,  although  he  tried  his  best  to  retain  it, 

was  obliged  to  let  it  go,  and  it  fled  to  some  distance The  next 

day . . .  the  well-sinkers . . .  had  the  gratification  of  striking  on  a 
strong  spring  of  pure  and  beautiful  water  coming  in  so  fast  as 

to  cause  them  to  make  a  hurried  exit The  father  stated  that 

when  he  was  a  boy  he  possessed  the  same  power,  but  entirely 

lost  it  at  sixteen  years  of  age 1  was  then,  and  I  am  now, 

fully  convinced ...  of  the  full  integrity  of  the  whole  transac- 
tion, no  fee  or  reward  being  asked  for  or  expected,  and  I  there- 
fore cannot  avoid  entertaining  the  opinion  that  there  must 
be  '  something  in  it,'  that  something  being  dependent  upon 
some  peculiar  magnetic  or  other  condition  of  the  human 
agent  employed " 

Mr.  John  Wood  thus  wrote  to  Mr.  Vaughan  Jenkins 
(Pr.  XIII,  34)  : 

"  Whitfield  Estate  Office,  February  4th,  1890. 

" The  next  thing  was  for  each  of  the  company  to  try 

with  the  rod,  but  not  one  of  us  had  the  '  faculty/  excepting  my 
little  daughter  May.  Subsequently  the  rod  indicated  water 
in  several  places,  both  in  the  hands  of  May  and  Mullins — 
May  finding  it  first  sometimes  and  at  other  times  Mullins. 
. . .  May  is  now  thirteen  years  of  age.  She  has  proved  successful 


Ch.  IX]       Lady  Milbanke  and  Bleton,  Dowsers  129 

in  numerous  cases;  four  wells  have  been  sunk  where  she  said 
there  was  water,  and  each  one  was  a  success n 

Here  is  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Hutton  alluded  to  on  page  124 
regarding  his  experience  with  the  divining-rod  as  used  by 
Lady  Milbanke  (Pr.  XIII,  42) : 

" Lady  Milbanke  showed  the  experiment  several  times 

in  different  places In  the  places  where  I  had  good  reason 

to  know  that  no  water  was  to  be  found  the  rod  was  always 
quiescent,  but  in  other  places,  where  I  knew  there  was  water 
below  the  surface,  the  rods  turned  slowly  and  regularly . . .  till 
the  twigs  twisted  themselves  off  below  the  fingers,  which  were 
considerably  indented  by  so  forcibly  holding  the  rod  between 
them. 

"  All  the  company  stood  close  to  Lady  M.,  with  all  eyes 
intensely  fixed  on  her  hands  and  the  rods  to  watch  if  any 
particular  motion  might  be  made  by  the  fingers,  but  in  vain; 
nothing  of  the  kind  was  perceived,  and  all  the  company  could 
observe  no  cause  or  reason  why  the  rods  should  move  in  the 
manner  they  were  seen  to  do." 

The  capacity  of  Bleton,  the  celebrated  French  dowser  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  was  discovered  when  he  was  a  child", 
by  his  having  "  la  fievre "  when  seated  by  a  certain  rock 
under  which  later  a  spring  was  found,  and  there  are  many 
similar  cases  (Pr.  XIII,  272  et  seq.). 

(Pr.  XV,  265) :  "  The  Chevalier  de  M.  describes  in  detail 
one  of  several  tests  he  made;  he  brought  Bleton  to  his  own 
house,  arriving  after  dark;  in  passing  through  the  village, 
which  Bleton  had  not  visited  before,  Bleton  suddenly  stopped 
and  said  water  was  there;  he  followed  it  in  the  darkness  and 
arrived  at  a  spot  where  he  declared  the  spring  existed;  he 
was  right;  it  was,  in  fact,  the  source  of  the  fountain  of  the 
castle.  Other  tests  are  also  given:  altogether  a  remarkable 
and  weighty  testimony." 

Dr.  Thouvenal  (Pr.  XV,  263)  says  of  Bleton: 

" Sometimes,  in  order  to  try  and  deceive  him,  if  his 

senses  were  concerned,  I  placed  false  marks  as  if  to  indi- 
cate a  spring;  sometimes  after  he  had  followed  a  spring  across 
several  fields  I  moved  the  pegs  some  feet  away  without  his 
knowledge.  Nevertheless,  he  was  never  led  astray  and  always 
rectified  such  errors.  In  fine,  I  tried  all  sorts  of  ways  to 
deceive  him,  and  I  can  testify  that  in  more  than  six  hundred 
trials  I  did  not  succeed  in  doing  so  one  single  time." 

Here  are  a  few  of  the  many  cases  of  dowsing  for  metals. 


130  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

W.  J.  Brown,  of  Middlehill  House,  Box,  Wilts,  a  member  of 
the  councils  of  several  public  bodies,  says  (Pr.  XIII,  94)  : 

"  Some  friends  and  myself  arranged  to  test  Mullins's  capac- 
ity for  discovering  metal.  In  his  absence  we  took  ten  stones 
off  the  top  of  a  wall,  and,  having  placed  them  on  the  road,  we 
deposited  a  sovereign  under  three  of  them.  Mullins  passed 
his  rod  over  the  top  of  each  stone,  and  without  the  slightest 
hesitation  told  us  at  once  under  which  stones  the  sovereigns 
were.  When  he  came  to  a  stone  under  which  there  was  no 
sovereign,  he  at  once  said,  '  Nothing  here,  master/  but  when 
he  got  to  the  others,  he  remarked,  '  All  right,  master,  thankee,' 
turned  the  stone  over  and  put  the  sovereign  in  his  pocket." 

Mr.  H.  B.  Napier,  agent  for  Sir  Gabriel  Goldney,  thus 
wrote  Professor  Barrett  (Pr.  XIII,  148)  : 

"  Chippenham,  Wilts,  May  llth,  1896. 

"At  Gloucester  some  years  ago  a  sovereign  was  lost  under 
the  board  floor  in  the  Finance  Office.  The  members  of  the 
Council  did  not  themselves  know  exactly  where  to  find  it, 
and  sent  for  Mr.  Tompkins,  who  indicated  a  particular  spot 
on  the  floor,  and  on  a  carpenter  being  sent  for  the  sovereign 
was  found  to  be  immediately  beneath  the  spot " 

Mr.  W.  G.  Hellier,  of  Wick  St.  Lawrence,  near  Weston- 
super-Mare,  Bailiff  of  the  Merchant  Venturers  of  Bristol, 
states  (Pr.  XIII,  51) : 

"  Whilst  the  dowser  was  tracing  this  spring,  walking  back- 
wards and  forwards  across  the  line  of  its  course,  I  hid  my 
pocket  compass  in  the  long  grass  in  his  track,  and,  when  he 
came  to  it,  the  rod  turned  over,  and  he  said,  '  There  is  summat 
here/  I  am  certain  that  he  did  not  see  the  compass  until 
afterwards,  when  I  showed  it  to  him  hidden." 

Now  for  various  opinions  on  the  causes  of  these  phenomena. 

Thus  Mr.  Sollas,  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge, 
Professor  of  Geology  in  the  University  of  Dublin,  says 
(Pr.  II,  73)  : 

"I  am  confident,  from  what  I  observed,  that  the  sole  im- 
mediate cause  for  the  turning  of  the  rod  is  to  be  found  in 
the  muscular  contraction  of  the  hand  of  the  operator." 

Professor  Barrett  declared  in  his  first  paper  (Pr.  XIII, 
253): 

"  Doubtless  a  subconscious  suggestion,  of  some  kind,  evoked 


Ch.  IX]       Exceptional  Sensibilities  in  Dowsing  131 

in  the  dowser's  mind,  excites  the  reflex  action  to  which  the 
actual  moTement  of  the  rod  is  due. 

" The    recent    discovery    of    a    new    type    of    obscure 

radiation  from  certain  bodies,  such  as  uranium  salts,  and 
also  from  numerous  common  bodies  with  which  we  are  sur- 
rounded, renders  it  conceivable  that  a  radiation,  to  which 
opaque  bodies  are  permeable,  may  be  emitted  by  water  and 
metals,  which  unconsciously  impresses  some  persons " 

Could  not  such  a  "radiation"  affect  the  rod  as  well  as 
the  person? 

Dr.  Lauder  Bninton  says  (Pr.  XIII,  8) : 

"  When  we  hear  that  a  man  is  able  to  discover  water  at  a 
considerable  distance  below  the  ground  on  which  he  stands,  we 
are  at  first  apt  to  scout  the  idea  as  ridiculous,  while  if  we 
were  told  that  a  caravan  was  crossing  a  desert,  and  that  all  at 
once  the  thirsty  camels  started  off  quickly,  and  at  a  distance 
of  a  mile  or  more  water  was  found,  we  look  upon  the  occur- 
rence as  natural.  In  the  same  way  we  regard  as  very  remark- 
able the  story  of  a  man  tracing  criminals  with  a  divining 
rod,  but  it  becomes  quite  ordinary  if  we  put  a  bloodhound  in 
the  man's  place." 

Probably  it  was  also  Dr.  Bninton  who  said  (Ibid.,  276) : 

"I  believe  that  the  almost  incredible  acuteness  of  sight, 
scent,  and  hearing,  which  a.re  found  universally  in  certain 
classes  of  the  lower  animals,  and  are  not  uncommon  in  savage 
races,  are  occasionally  possessed  by  certain  individuals  amongst 
civilized  races.  For  instance:  the  presence  of  water-vapor 
in  the  air  over  certain  spots  makes  itself  evident  to  everyone 
as  a  visible  fog  in  early  morning.  Now  /  am  acquainted  with 
a  rheumatic  patient  who,  on  passing  over  such  a  spot  during 
the  day,  when  no  vapor  is  visible,  feels  pains  in  her  joints. 
Of  course,  such  a  condition  of  hyperesthesia  is  very  rare  in- 
deed." 

This  doesn't  account  for  the  movement  of  the  rod.  Then 
the  writer  takes  a  different  tack: 

" The  moving  of  the  rod  in  a  diviner's  fingers  depends 

simply  upon  the  bodily  condition  of  the  diviner  himself,  just 
as  the  rigidity  of  a  pointer's  tail  when  scenting  game  depends 
entirely  upon  the  excitement  of  the  dog." 

The  dog's  tail  is  directly  in  contact  with  his  nervous  system 
— contains  a  part  of  it,  in  fact.  The  rod  is  not.  Moreover, 
the  tail  stands  still,  whereas  the  rod  moves  violently. 


132  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

And  here  speaks  that  acute  observer,  great  naturalist,  and 
saintly  soul,  Dr.  Wallace,  who  wrote  to  Professor  Barrett 
as  follows  (Pr.  XV,  217)  : 

"If  the  rod  does  move  wholly  by  muscular  action,  it  does 
not  at  all  affect  the  power  of  the  dowser  in  finding  water, — 
but  the  fact  should  be  proved.  To  me,  the  evidence  you  adduce 
shows  that  it  is  not  muscular  action,  and  if  this  can  be  proved 
it,  of  course,  places  the  dowser  in  the  ranks  of  a  physical 
'medium,'  which  I  have  always  held  him  to  be.  If  the  two 
facts  you  state  are  facts:  (1)  That  the  motion  of  the  rod 
cannot  be  intentionally  produced  (by  any  novice)  without 
visible  muscular  action  of  an  energetic  kind;  and  (2)  that  in 
an  outsider's  hands,  holding  the  rod  for  the  first  time,  it  will 
often  move  if  the  dowser  holds  his  wrists,  and  with  no  con- 
scious, and  little  visible,  muscular  action  on  the  experimenter's 
part, — then  it  follows  that  the  motion  is  not  produced  by 
muscular  action  at  all,  but  is  a  physical  phenomenon  analogous 
to  hundreds  of  others  occurring  in  the  presence  of  '  mediums.' 

"I  think  you  should  have  said:  "The  obvious  explanation, 
of  course,  is  that  the  rod  is  moved  by  the  hands  of  the  operator, 
acting  consciously  or  unconsciously.  .There  are,  however, 
many  difficulties  in  the  way  of  this  view,  and  many  facts 
which  seem  directly  opposed  to  it.'  After  which  your  various 
statements  would  follow  naturally.  Now,  they  seem  to  me 
to  be  in  the  nature  of  a  non  sequitur! 

"  Of  course,  I  am  a  confirmed  lunatic  in  these  matters,  so 
excuse  the  ravings  of  a  lunatic,  but  sincere,  friend. 

"ALFRED  R.  WALLACE." 

Professor  Barrett  says  (Pr.  XV,  311)  : 

*'  The  probability  that  an  explanation  is  to  be  found  in 
some  extension  of  our  knowledge  of  human  personality,  some- 
thing new  to  science,  and  something  akin  to  what  has  been 
termed  clairvoyance,  gains  considerable  weight  from  a  critical 
study  of  cognate  phenomena." 

But  how  about  the  rod? 

The  first  step  regarding  the  correlation  of  these  phenomena 
with  familiar  ones  is  to  determine  whether  the  rod  is  really 
moved  independently  of  the  conscious  or  unconscious  volition 
of  the  dowser.  On  this  subject  early  testimony  is  conflicting, 
but  that  recently  accumulated  seems  to  be  overwhelming  in 
favor  of  the  independence  of  the  force. 

True  to  the  conditions  of  their  craft,  and  very  properly 
so,  most  of  the  scientific  men  who  have  been  very  familiar 


Ch.  IX]          Docs  the  Dowser  Move  the  Rodf  133 

with  the  processes  by  which  things  become  not  what  they 
seem,  or  rather  seem  what  they  are  not,  have  voted  the 
dowser's  force  to  be  involuntary  muscular  contraction,  re- 
sponse to  clairvoyant  vision,  and  several  other  things,  some 
of  which  are  harder  to  accept  than  a  new  and  as  yet  un- 
correlated  mode  of  force. 

Professor  Barrett  says  (Pr.  XIII,  24)  that  the  movement 
of  the  rod  is  "  an  automatic  action  that  occurs  under  certain 
conditions  in  certain  individuals."  Perhaps  his  meaning 
would  have  been  expressed  more  precisely  if  he  had  said  in 
connection  with  "certain  individuals":  for  he  goes  on  to 
produce  a  mass  of  evidence  that  the  action  is  independent 
of  the  will  and  of  muscular  control — is  the  influence  upon 
the  rod  of  a  current  between  the  organism  and  the  object 
sought. 

Here  are  two  bits  of  evidence  that,  so  far  as  they  go,  seem 
to  dispose  of  the  case.  • 

Testimony  of  Sir  E.  Welby  Gregory  (Pr.  II,  99)  : 

"  The  lines  of  water  indicated  by  Mullins  had  been  marked 
by  pegs  60  yards  or  70  yards  apart,  and  just  visible  above  the 
grass.  These  lines  Towers  and  his  twig  emphatically  con- 
firmed, and  I  proceeded  to  test  him.  I  had  the  projecting 
extremities  of  the  prongs  of  the  twig  held  tight  by  pincers,  so 
that  there  could  be  no  voluntary  action  on  Towers'  part  when 
crossing  the  marked  lines.  Despite  of  this,  the  point  of  the 
twig  twisted  itself  upwards,  till  the  bark  was  wrinkled  and 
almost  split,  while  the  strain  and  pressure  upon  the  muscles 
of  the  man's  hands  were  most  apparent." 

The  following  from  Mr.  F.  Bastable,  14,  Foskelt  Road, 
Fulham,  appeared  in  the  Carpenter  and  Builder  of  Septem- 
ber 30th,  1892 : 

(Pr.XIII,86):  <rWe  procured  two  pairs  of  smith's  tongs 
to  see  if  the  twigs  did  actually  twist,  and  held  them  in 
a  tight  grip,  with  one  pair  securing  the  tips  and  the  other  the 
fork,  but  the  contortions  still  went  on  between  the  points  held." 

The  following  seems  a  pretty  strong  piece  of  evidence, 
especially  considering  its  source. 

From  Mr.  H.  W.  Whitaker,  the  well-known  geologist,  an 
utter  disbeliever  in  the  dowsing-rod,  or  in  any  practical  good 
resulting  from  its  use  (Pr.  XIII,  69)  : 


134  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

"  The  diviner,  named  Lawrence,  an  old  white-haired,  benevo- 
lent-faced man  . . .  took  ...  a  strong  forked  hazel  twig,  holding 
an  end  of  each  fork  in  each  hand,  and  keeping  his  elbows 
tightly  down  to  his  side.  I  can  only  describe  the  antics  of 
that  twig  as  a  pitched  battle  between  itself  and  him!  It 
twisted,  it  knocked  about,  it  contracted  and  contorted  the 
muscles  of  his  hands  and  arms,  it  wriggled,  and  fought,  and 
kicked,  until  it  snapped  in  two — and  then — what  made  it  pain- 
ful to  watch  until  you  got  used  to  it,  the  old  man  reeled,  and 
clutched  hold  of  anyone  nearest  to  him  for  a  few  moments.  It 
evidently  exhausts  him  very  much,  though  afterwards  I  asked 
him  what  effect  it  had  on  him,  and  he  said  it  only  made  his 

heart  beat  most  violently  for  a  short  time He  was  asked 

if  he  could  mesmerize  and  he  said,  no.  He  held  the  wire  over 
Lady  D.'s  watch,  and  it  wriggled  just  as  it  had  done  over 
the  water." 

If  it  is  worth  while  to  administer  a  farther  quietus  to  a 
subject  already  disposed  of,  Professor  Barrett  does  it,  with  his 
increased  light  in  his  second  paper  (Pr.  XV,  277) : 

"  Other  correspondents  have  also  urged  that  muscular  action, 
whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  is  an  insufficient  explanation 
of  the  phenomena  actually  observed.  In  the  Journal  of  the  S. 
P.  R.  for  December,  1897,  Mr.  E.  T.  Bennett  cites  some  of  the 
evidence  I  gave  in  the  previous  Report  in  support  of  this 
view.  Mr.  Bennett  urges,  with  much  cogency,  that  as  Fara- 
day's explanation  of  table-turning  being  due  to  involuntary 
muscular  action  is  now  recognized  as  inadequate  to  cover  all 
the  phenomena  of  this  kind,  so  in  like  manner  this  explana- 
tion fails  to  cover  all  the  cases  of  the  twisting  of  the  divining 
rod,  and  hence  some  other  cause,  external  to  the  dowser,  Is 
probably  at  work." 

This  is  followed  by  statements  of  various  witnesses  bearing 
on  the  point,  with  fuller  particulars  and  references  than  I 
have  space  for.  In  fact  the  evidence  is  so  overwhelming  that 
the  only  explanation  of  Professor  Sollas  and  others  having 
stated  a  different  opinion  is  that  they  did  so  before  the  evi- 
dence accumulated. 

In  view  of  what  has  preceded,  does  not  the  dowser's  force 
look  much  like  merely  one  more  form  of  magnetism?  It 
is  like  the  known  forms,  in  being: 

I.  A  current  between  two  poles. 

II.  Evolved  from  a  preceding  mode  of  force — that  ab- 
sorbed by  the  human  system  from  its  usual  sources  of  supply. 


Ch.  IX]    Does  Dowser  Use  Force  akin  to  Magnetism?      135 

This  is  shown  by  the  almost  universal  experience  of  fatigue 
and  similar  results  after  the  experience.  The  best  statement 
out  of  a  vast  number  is  that  of  Mr.  Stears  (Pr.  XIII,  164) : 

"  My  powers  vary  with  health.  If  tired  I  lose  the  power; 
provide  the  animal  system  with  a  fresh  supply  of  food,  and 
back  the  power  comes." 

III.  In  producing  sensations  like  those  from  the  electro- 
magnetic current.     The  following  accounts  are  but  few  out 
of  many. 

Mullins  stated  to  Mr.  Plowman  (Pr.  XIII,  95) : 

••  Whenever  he  is  dowsing  and  gets  over  a  stream  of  water 
he  feels  a  tingling  sensation  in  his  arms  like  a  slight  electric 
shock,  and  the  strength  of  this  sensation  enables  him  to  guess 
the  approximate  volume  or  depth  of  a  spring." 

Mr.  Stone  (Pr.  XIII,  124)  adds: 

"  The  sensation  I  experience  when  over  an  underground 
spring  is  very  like  what  is  felt  when  grasping  the  handles  of 
an  electric  machine,  often  seen  at  railway  stations." 

Mr.  Tompkins  (Pr.  XIII,  161) : 

"  I  feel  a  tingling  sensation . . .  when  I  get  on  to  a  running 

stratum  of  water The  moment  I  cross  a  stratum  of  water 

I  feel  a  sort  of  bracing  sensation,  which  passes  up  my  legs, 
back,  and  shoulders,  and  down  the  arms  to  the  twig;  when  I 
get  off  the  water  course  I  feel  the  loss  of  this  power,  till  I 
cross  the  water  again." 

IV.  In  being  transmissible  from  one  person  to  another, 
by  holding  the  wrists. 

V.  In  reversibility  of  the  poles:  sometimes  the  twig  turns 
up,  sometimes  down.    Sometimes  it  oscillates  or  twists. 

VI.  Apparently  in  that  the  need  of  good  conduction  ap- 
pears to  vary  inversely  as  the  strength  of  the  current.     I 
say :  "  apparently "  because  the  phenomena  suggesting  this 
are  confusing.    The  electric  spark  jumps  unconnected  inter- 
vals varying  from  a  half  inch  between  a  child's  finger  and 
a  metal  bracket,  to  those  between  the  poles  of  a  Ruhmkorff 
coil,  and  those  between  a  cloud  and  the  earth.    Some  dowsers 
are  able  to  work  without  any  twig  or  steel  spring,  going  en- 
tirely by  sensations  similar  to  those  felt  by  others  only  when 


136  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

holding  a  twig  or  spring.  This  looks  very  much  as  if  the 
twig  or  spring  helped  close  the  circuit  for  a  weak  current,  and 
were  superfluous  for  those  who  can  generate  a  strong  current. 

The  dowsing  magnetism  seems  to  differ  from  the  earlier 
known  magnetisms  in  the  following  particulars : 

I.  Having  its  only  known  origin  in  the  human  system. 

II.  Instead  of  being  restricted,  like  the  well-known  forms, 
to  metal  and  nerve  tissue  as  conductors:  it  seems  to  act  on 
water  and  possibly  all  known  inorganic  substances,  and  also 
on  some,  perhaps  all,  of  the  tissues  of  the  human  body,  and 
presumably  animal  tissue  in  general,  though  all  this  may  be 
practically  through  the  nerve  tissue. 

III.  In  apparently  being  directed  by  will,  so  far  as  will 
may  be  an  element  in  setting  the  current  in  motion,  and  in 
determining  the  pole  external  to  the  human  system.     The 
dowsers  are  generally  not  affected  when  they  are  not  de- 
liberately "at  work,"  and  perhaps  are  able  to  fix  one  pole 
of  the  current  in  any  one  of  several  substances  they  choose, 
perhaps    in    any    substance    whatever;    certainly    in    water 
and  metals,  and  are  alleged  to  have  traced  a  criminal  in 
France. 

IV.  In  being  apparently  less  reliable   in  the  matter  of 
isolation.     At  least  the  evidence  is  perplexing — even  con- 
tradictory.   For  particulars  see  Pr.  XIII,  27,  31,  43,  58,  78, 
186. 

V.  In  being,  in  a  new  and  more  intimate  way,  an  extension 
of  the  control  of  mind  over  matter;  and  in  giving  one  more 
hint  that  perhaps  the  two  are  but  different  manifestations 
of  the  same  thing. 

A  connection  with  electricity  is  suggested  by  a  statement 
from  Mr.  A.  B.  Durfee,  of  Grand  Eapids,  Michigan  (Pr. 
XIII,  217)  that  Mr.  Cyrus  Fuller,  a  noted  dowser  of  that 
neighborhood  a  generation  ago,  told  Mr.  Durfee  that  whenever 
he  found  a  tree  in  a  forest  "  stricken  by  lightning,  he  was  sure 
to  find  a  stream  "  [underground]  "  leading  very  near  to  it." 

The  exercise  of  the  power  is  virtually  always  accompanied 
by  physiological  experiences,  not  only,  as  already  stated, 


Ch.  IX]    Dowser's  Telopsis  and  Visceral  Sensations        137 

fatigue  and  the  sensations  produced  by  grasping  the  handles  of 
an  electrical  machine,  but  also,  in  some  cases,  nausea,  palpita- 
tion, and  "  fearful  perspiration." 

Oddly,  but  suggestively,  the  electric  ( ?)  thrill  frequently 
goes  to  the  solar  plexus,  in  the  near  neighborhood  of  which 
it  produces  nausea.  This  is  stated  in  several  instances.  The 
solar  plexus  seems  to  have  some  connection  with  telopsis 
as  will  be  substantiated  later.  Some  telopsists  even  seem 
to  have  a  perception  akin  to  sight  through  that  region,  and 
(as  already  stated),  some  dowsers  have  clairvoyant  experi- 
ences in  connection  with  the  zoomagnetic  (?)  manifestations. 

Mr.  J.  F.  Young,  of  Llanelly,  a  member  of  the  S.  P.  R., 
and  a  successful  amateur  dowser,  thus  wrote  to  Professor 
Barrett  (Pr.  XV,  360) : 

" I  found  that  after  '  setting '  myself  to  use  the  rod, 

i.e.,  getting  into  an  abstracted  mental  condition,  lost  to  all 
around,  when,  or  just  before,  the  rod  turned,  I  could, — as  it 
were  clairvoyantly, — see  the  underground  springs  and  actually 
appeared  able  to  trace  them  out  as  I  walked  along.  My  friend, 
Mr.  Robertson,  who,  as  you  are  aware,  also  uses  the  rod  with 
success  as  an  amateur  water-finder,  tells  me  he  also  had  a 
similar  experience,  and  we  have  since  read  that  a  'diviner' 
named  Adams,  a  Somerset  man,  frequently  asserted  the  same 
thing." 

On  this  Professor  Barrett  expatiates  (Pr.  XV,  366) : 

"  Now  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  this  inquiry  has  led  us  to 
the  conclusion  that  some  dowsers  exhibit  symptoms  of  induced 
catalepsy  and  experience  singular  sensations  in  the  epigastrium 
when  the  object  sought  for  is  transcendentally  '  perceived '  by 
them.  I  have  already  pointed  out  in  Part  XII  that  the  visceral 
sensations  of  the  dowser  are  probably  emotional  disturbances, 
arising  from  a  psychical  state,  and  it  is  likely  enough  that  a 
similar  explanation  accounts  for  the  cataleptic  subject  believ- 
ing he  sees  with  his  stomach,  the  sensation  being  there.  But 
this  explanation  merely  accounts  for  the  secondary  effects 
observed;  the  induction  of  the  psychical  state  still  remains  a 
mystery." 

All  very  well,  but  what  accounts  for  the  rod  acting  utterly 
independently  of  the  operator,  as  already  abundantly  indi- 
cated? 

After  all  this  wading  through  the  slough,  I  incline  to  do 


138  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

deliberately  what  Professor  Barrett  was  led  toward  doing 
by  force  of  circumstances,  and  frankly  accept  ("  provisionally  " 
of  course)  both  interpretations — a  new  molecular  force,  and 
telepsychosis  too,  and  a  dozen  others,  if  you  please.  I  am 
by  no  means  sure  they  are  not  fundamentally  one,  whatever 
the  differences  in  their  manifestations. 

Mr.  Barrett's  conclusions  so  far  as  they  are  unfavorable 
to  a  quasi-magnetic  force,  were  probably  reached  before  the 
days  of  the  trolley-car  and  the  telephone ;  and  certainly  before 
the  days  of  the  wireless  telegraph.  Probably  in  these  days 
of  new  modes  of  force,  he  would  find  a  much  more  rational 
explanation  of  the  dowser's  spasm  and  the  rod's  action 
in  a  hypothetical  mode  of  force  which  is,  like  electricity  and 
magnetism,  highly  telekinetic,  independent  of  any  conductor 
(as  is  indeed  the  electric  spark,  in  the  laboratory  or  in  the 
clouds)  and  for  which  I  have,  as  already  intimated,  ventured 
to  provisionally  suggest  the  name  zob'magnetism. 

And  here  I  am  again  reminded  of  the  difficulty  of  drawing 
distinctions  in  Nature.  Perhaps  all  these  mysterious  powers 
are  but  different  aspects  of  the  same  thing;  and  as  I  grope 
on  I  seem  to  get  more  definite  and  unified  notions  of  what 
that  thing  is.  I  will  give  them  later. 

The  more  I  have  read  about  these  various  modes  of  force, 
the  more  surprised  I  am  at  the  scant  evidence  of  efforts 
made  to  correlate  them  in  the  laboratory.  I  have  not  even 
seen  any  indication  of  a  test  whether  table-tippers  have  the 
dowsing  power  or  vice  versa.  Lines  of  investigation  opened 
in  this  way  might  be  very  fruitful. 

The  accounts  of  Foster,  Home,  Moses,  and  not  a  few 
others  seem  to  indicate  a  probability  that  the  organism  pos- 
sessing any  one  of  the  as-yet-mysterious  powers  we  have  been 
describing  is  apt,  though  by  no  means  sure,  to  possess  some 
of  the  others.  Of  course  to  the  ignorant  all  this  spells  fraud, 
and  to  even  the  credulous,  so  many  accomplishments  in  one 
man,  none  of  which  are  possessed  by  average  men.  are  a  tax 
on  faith.  But  it  should  be  carefully  realized  that  the  nearer 
these  alleged  powers  may  be  found  to  be  various  manifestations 
of  a  single  power,  the  more  the  tax  on  faith  will  decrease. 
As  electricity,  whether  manifested  as  light,  heat,  or  kinetic 
force,  has  its  own  range  of  vibrations,  so  these  half-dozen 


Ch.  IX]  The  Pendule  Explorateur  139 

new  powers  may  be  found  to  be  associated  in  some  other 
single  range  of  vibrations  in  the  outer  world,  which  interplay 
with  a  corresponding  capacity  for  nervous  vibration  that  is 
as  yet  developed  in  a  few,  and  but  few,  human  beings. 

After  I  had  written  the  foregoing  passages,  Professor  Bar- 
rett's admirable  little  book  on  Psychical  Research  appeared, 
and  I  found  to  my  astonishment  that  in  it  he  had  returned 
to,  or  perhaps  merely  more  clearly  expressed,  his  belief  that 
involuntary  muscular  action  moves  the  rod.  Moreover,  I 
found  the  same  conviction  expressed  in  Mrs.  Sidgwick's  presi- 
dential address  in  Pr.  XXII.  But  wliat  moves  the  muscles? 
Well !  "  Hier  steh  ich,  ich  kann  nicht  anders."  If  it  were 
only  a  question  of  physics,  of  course  I  would  not  dare  to  hold 
my  opinion  in  face  of  Professor  Barrett's.  But  it  is  a  question 
of  physiology  and  psychology,  and  not  only  of  them,  but  of  the 
interpretation  of  evidence  and  of  "  common  sense  " — whatever 
that  may  mean.  I'm  not  quite  sure  that  I  know,  but  I  think 
it  relates  to  a  pretty  wide  field  wherein  an  ordinarily  successful 
man  of  affairs  may  legitimately  be  accorded  as  much  weight 
as  a  specialist  in  some  particular  department  of  knowledge. 

Professor  Barrett  jumps  to  the  dowsing-rod  from  the 
pendule  explorateur.  This  is  a  weight  at  the  end  of  a  cord 
or  chain  held  in  the  hand,  and  is  generally  believed  to  be 
swung  by  unconscious  and  imperceptible  muscular  contractions 
in  the  directions  unconsciously  willed  by  the  person  holding 
it.  This  swinging  in  intelligent  directions — such  as  toward 
letters  of  the  alphabet  on  a  ring  surrounding  the  pendulum — 
is  attributed  to  muscular  action,  because  it  will  not  take 
place  when  the  pendulum  is  suspended  from  any  rigid  inani- 
mate support.  Then  it  cannot  be  willed  into  definite  direc- 
tions even  by  persons  in  whose  hands  it  will  swing  in  definite 
directions. 

But  in  these  hands  it  cannot  be  willed  into  definite  direc- 
tions either.  From  this  it  is  argued  that  the  muscular  action 
is  involuntary.  But  I  have  not  yet  seen  the  demonstration 
that  the  agency  is  muscular  at  all,  though  I  find  no  insuper- 
able difficulty  in  the  hypothesis. 

But  it  is  certainly  a  long  jump  from  the  possible  muscular 
contractions  of  the  pendulum-holder  which  are  so  minute 


140  Molar  Telekinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

that  he  and  the  spectators  only  infer  them,  to  the  marked 
gyrations  of  the  dowser's  hands  and  arms.  The  queer  thing 
is  that  the  dowsers  themselves,  professional  and  amateur, 
unanimously  declare  (so  far  as  I  recall)  that  their  gyrations 
are  not  involuntary  efforts  to  move  the  rod,  but  voluntary 
efforts  to  keep  it  quiet,  while  Professor  Barrett,  and  some 
other  scientific  onlookers,  declare  that  the  actors  themselves 
don't  know  their  own  minds  and  bodies,  and  that  what  they 
deny  regarding  them  is  true;  and  what  they  assert,  false. 

I  don't  know,  though,  that  Professor  Barrett's  hypothesis 
necessarily  traverses  the  one  virtually  held  by  the  dowsers, 
and  seeming  probable  to  me.  He  says  the  rod  is  moved  by 
involuntary  muscular  contraction.  I  guess  that  it  is  moved 
by  zob'magnetism.  The  truth  may  be  (though  the  men 
holding  the  rod  deny  it)  that  it  is  moved  by  involuntary 
muscular  contraction,  and  that  the  involuntary  muscular 
contraction  is  caused  by  zoomagnetism. 

Whatever  may  be  the  originality  of  my  opinion  regarding 
the  force  that  moves  the  rod,  I  can  at  least  contribute,  vicari- 
ously, to  the  history  of  the  subject  one  item  which  seems  to 
have  escaped  attention.  My  young  daughter  says  that  Moses 
at  the  rock  of  Horeb  was  evidently  the  original  dowser. 

Since  this  chapter  was  written,  Journal  S.  P.  R.  CCXCIV 
has  appeared  with  a  letter  from  Germany  announcing,  in  con- 
sequence of  some  remarkable  successes  with  the  dowsing  rod, 
the  formation  of  a  very  eminent  society  to  investigate  it. 

Breaks  in  the  municipal  water-pipes  in  Munich,  and  one  in 
a  dyke  at  Tambach  near  Gotha,  are  alleged  to  have  been  located 
by  it. 

So  far,  the  Germans  "  do  not  believe  that  the  fundamental 
principle  of  a  solution  to  the  problem  lies  in  a  supernormal 
psychical  gift  of  the  dowser,  but  in  the  physical  influence  of 
the  soil  acting  on  him." 

The  same  number  of  the  Journal  contains  a  paper  by  Sir 
William  Barrett,  in  which  he  says  that  he  has  received  a  letter 
from  Professor  Hyslop  which 

"  illustrates  the  need  of  further  investigation  on  the  question 
of  the  involuntary  and  unconscious  muscular  action  which,  I 
have  assumed  in  my  papers,  gives  rise  to  the  sudden  twisting  of 


Ch.  IX]     Unconscious  Muscular  Action  Doubtful  141 

the  dowsing  rod.  It  is  true, — as  will  be  seen  from  my  Report  in 
Proceedings,  Vol.  XV,  pp.  276,  et  seq.,  and  in  subsequent  papers 
in  the  Journal, — that  the  hypothesis  of  unconscious  muscular 
action  needs  to  be  stretched  to  almost  incredible  limits  in  some 
cases,  and  amongst  dowsers  themselves  it  is  universally  dis- 
credited. But  what  other  hypothesis  can  take  its  place '.  " 

It  had  already  been  my  lot  to  suggest  one  in  the  foregoing 
pages.  As  1  am  not  a  physicist,  I  don't  knew  how  many  laws 
supposed  to  be  established,  it  may  run  counter  to.  Even  if  it 
is  correct,  it  is  sure  to  run  counter  to  some. 


CHAPTER  X 
MOLECULAR  TELEKINESIS 

Sounds 

As  already  noted,  the  molar  manifestations  of  telekinesis 
are  generally  accompanied  by  molecular  ones,  especially  of 
"  raps  "  more  or  less  akin  to  crackings  in  seasoned  furniture. 
The  source  of  these  raps  seems  plainly  molecular.  There  is 
no  apparent  mechanical  cause  of  them,  and  the  objects,  gen- 
erally made  of  wood,  from  which  they  seem  to  proceed,  give 
no  indication,  like  cracks  from  change  of  temperature,  of 
any  change  of  structure  caused  by  the  source  of  the  sound. 
Moreover,  we  shall  see  later  that  similar  phenomena  take 
place  in  the  air  itself. 

We  are  reminded  constantly  of  the  absence  of  definite  lines 
of  division  in  Nature.  Allied  with  motions  of  the  air  started 
by  causes  not  aerial,  which,  so  far  as  our  present  knowledge 
goes,  are  essential  to  the  transmission  of  sound,  are  alleged 
motions  in  the  air,  of  whose  origin  we  as  yet  know  nothing. 
They  accompany  many  sounds  that  seem  to  originate  through 
obvious  manifestations  of  the  telekinetic  force,  and  so,  it  is 
to  be  presumed,  are  a  modification  of  it. 

I  observed  no  raps  when  P raised  the  music-stand, 

though  some  of  the  other  boys  had  heard  raps  around  his 
bed.  I  slept  in  a  remote  room. 

The  descriptions  generally  liken  the  raps,  as  said,  to  the 
cracking  of  unseasoned  wood,  but  there  are  varieties  of  sounds, 
including  one  of  a  ticking  in  a  letter.  An  account  of  this  last 
is  given  by  Myers  from  the  narrative  of  Mrs.  Anna  Davies 
of  Islington  (Pr.  VIII,  218)  : 

"  One  evening  I  paid  a  visit  to  Mrs.  Brown,  and  she  gave 

me  an  Indian  letter 1  placed  it  on  the  chimney-piece  in 

our  sitting-room,  and  sat  down  alone.     I  expected  my  brother 

home  in  an  hour  or  two.     The  letter,  of  course,  in  no  way 

142 


Ch.  X]         Ticking  in  a  Letter.     Various  Raps  143 

interested  me.  In  a  minute  or  two  I  heard  a  ticking  on 
the  chimney-piece,  and  it  struck  me  that  an  old-fashioned 
watch  which  my  mother  always  had  standing  in  her  bedroom 
must  have  been  brought  downstairs.  I  went  to  the  chimney- 
piece,  but  there  was  no  watch  or  clock  there  or  elsewhere  in 
the  room.  The  ticking,  which  was  loud  and  sharp,  seemed 
to  proceed  from  the  letter  itself.  Greatly  surprised,  I  removed 
the  letter  and  put  it  on  a  sideboard,  and  then  in  one  or  two 
other  places;  but  the  ticking  continued,  proceeding  undoubt- 
edly from  where  the  letter  was  each  time.  After  an  hour  or 
so  of  this  I  could  bear  the  thing  no  longer,  and  went  out  and 
sat  in  the  hall  to  await  my  brother.  When  he  came  in  I 
simply  took  him  into  the  sitting-room  and  asked  him  if  he 
heard  anything.  He  said  at  once,  '  I  hear  a  watch  or  clock 
ticking/  There  was  no  watch  or  clock,  as  I  have  said,  in  the 
room.  He  went  to  where  the  letter  was  and  exclaimed,  '  Why, 
the  letter  is  ticking.'. ..  My  brother  took  the  letter  to  Mrs. 
J.  W.  either  that  night  (it  was  very  late)  or  next  morn- 
ing. On  opening  it,  she  found  that  her  husband  had  suddenly 
died  of  sunstroke,  and  the  letter  was  written  by  some  servant 
or  companion  to  inform  her  of  his  death." 

In  Home's  case  and  many  others,  the  presence  of  the 
"  spirits  "  was  generally  announced  by  "  raps  "  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  seance;  or,  in  common  language,  both  those  sets 
of  manifestations — tappings  and  raps,  like  steam  from  a 
safety  valve,  showed  that  the  telekinetic  force  was  ready  for 
action. 

Sir  William  Crookes  (Researches,  86-7)  thus  describes 
the  varieties  of  raps.  His  account  is  supported  by  hosts  of 
witnesses  to  one  or  more: 

"  The  popular  name  of  '  raps '  conveys  a  very  erroneous 
impression  of  this  class  of  phenomena.  At  different  times, 
during  my  experiments,  I  have  heard  delicate  ticks,  as  with 
the  point  of  a  pin;  a  cascade  of  sharp  sounds,  as  from  an 
induction-coil  in  full  work;  detonations  in  the  air;  sharp 
metallic  taps;  a  cracking  like  that  heard  when  a  frictional 
machine  is  at  work;  sounds  like  scratching;  the  twittering  as 
of  a  bird,  etc. 

"  These  sounds  are  noticed  with  almost  every  medium,  each 
having  a  special  peculiarity;  they  are  more  varied  with  Mr. 
Home,  but  for  power  and  certainty  I  have  met  with  no  one 

who  at  all  approached  Miss  Kate  Fox In  the  case  of  Miss 

Fox  it  seems  only  necessary  for  her  to  place  her  hand  on 
any  substance  for  loud  thuds  to  be  heard  in  it,  like  a  triple 
pulsation,  sometimes  loud  enough  to  be  heard  several  rooms 


144  Molecular  Telekinesis         [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

off.  In  this  manner  I  have  heard  them  in  a  living  tree — 
on  a  sheet  of  glass — on  a  stretched  iron  wire — on  a  stretched 
membrane — a  tambourine — on  the  roof  of  a  cab — and  on  the 
floor  of  a  theater.  Moreover,  actual  contact  is  not  always 
necessary;  I  have  had  these  sounds  proceeding  from  the  floor, 
walls,  etc.,  when  the  medium's  hands  and  feet  were  held — 
when  she  was  standing  on  a  chair — when  she  was  suspended  in 
a  swing  from  the  ceiling — when  she  was  enclosed  in  a  wire 
cage — and  when  she  had  fallen  fainting  on  a  sofa.  I  have 
heard  them  on  a  glass  harmonicon — I  have  felt  them  on  my 
own  shoulder  and  under  my  own  hands.  I  have  heard  them 
on  a  sheet  of  paper,  held  between  the  fingers  by  a  piece  of 
thread  passed  through  one  corner.  With  a  full  knowledge  of 
the  numerous  theories  which  have  been  started,  chiefly  in 
America,  to  explain  these  sounds,  I  have  tested  them  in  every 
way  that  I  could  devise,  until  there  has  been  no  escape  from 
the  conviction  that  they  were  true  objective  occurrences  not 
produced  by  trickery  or  mechanical  means." 

When  Sir  William  Crookes  gives  his  testimony  regarding 
physical  phenomena,  there  is  not  much  more  to  be  said. 
But  this  foregoing  statement  regarding  Miss  Kate  Fox  needs 
reconciliation  with  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Maggie  Fox  Kane  made 
"  exposures  "  of  the  frauds  which  she  claimed  all  three  sisters 
had  been  guilty  of.  The  reconciliation  may  partly  consist 
in  the  fact  that  a  great  deal  of  money  was  made  by  public 
exhibitions  of  these  exposures.  But  while  they  were  going 
on,  Mrs.  Kate  Fox  Jencken  wrote  a  letter  printed  in  Light, 
expressing  great  distress  over  her  sister's  conduct,  and  saying 
of  her  and  an  associate  who  had  long  been  a  professional 
"  exposer  "  of  "  spiritualism  " :  "  They  are  hard  at  work  to 
expose  the  whole  thing  if  they  can,  but  they  certainly  cannot." 

She  also  says  that  she  had  seen  her  sister  but  once  since 
her  return  from  England,  and  yet  the  issue  of  Light  for 
November  3,  1888,  two  weeks  earlier  than  the  date  of  Mrs. 
Jencken's  letter,  said : 

"  We  learn  from  America  that  Mrs.  Jencken  and  Mrs.  Kane, 
two  of  the  Fox  Sisters,  have  started  on  an  exposure  tour." 

More  particulars  are  given  in  the  Jour,  (not  Pr.)  S.  P.  R. 
for  January,  1889,  pp.  15f.,  and  the  S.  P.  R.  seems  to  have 
considered  the  case  settled  by  Mrs.  Jencken's  letter,  as  no 
more  has  been  said  about  it. 


Ch.  X]    Raps  Heard  by  Barrett,  Moses,  Crookes,  Etc.      145 
From  Professor  Barrett  (Pr.  IV,  34) : 

"  Presently  loud  raps  were  given  at  this  table  beneath  the 
hands  of  the  sitters,  so  loud,  in  fact,  they  quite  startled  me. 
In  character  the  sounds  in  general  resembled  the  snapping 
noises  occasionally  made  by  furniture  when  the  joints  open 
under  the  heat  of  a  room.  But  the  sharpest  and  loudest 
cracks  can  be  well  imitated  in  strength  and  character  by 
smartly  striking  a  table  with  the  edge  of  an  ivory  paper- 
knife " 

The  following  occurred  in  the  presence  of  Moses.  The 
initials  are  Dr.  Speeds  (Pr.  IX,  319,  Note) : 

"Sunday,  July  20th. ...  Knocks  of  the  sharpest  kind  came 
on  the  table  and  then  on  the  floor.  It  was  as  if  large  glass 
marbles  had  been  thrown  on  the  table,  had  bounded  off  on 
the  floor,  and  then  rolled  away.  Till  a  light  was  struck  it 
was  almost  impossible  not  to  believe  that  such  had  been  the 
case. . . .  S.  T.  S." 

Sir  William  Crookes  prepared  an  apparatus  with  a  parch- 
ment diaphragm  connected  by  a  lever  with  a  tracing  register- 
ing apparatus.  On  the  diaphragm  he  placed  a  few  bits  of 
black  lead.  He  got  the  medium  (a  non-professional  lady 
whose  name  he  does  not  give)  to  place  her  hands  over  the 
diaphragm,  without  contact.  What  followed  he  thus  de- 
scribes (Researches,  p.  39) : 

"  Presently  percussive  noises  were  heard  on  the  parchment 
resembling  the  dropping  of  grains  of  sand  on  its  surface.  At 
each  percussion  a  fragment  of  graphite  which  I  had  placed 
on  the  membrane  was  seen  to  be  projected  upwards  about  l-50th 
of  an  inch,  and  the  end  C  of  the  lever  moved  slightly  up  and 
down.  Sometimes  the  sounds  were  as  rapid  as  those  from  an 
induction-coil,  whilst  at  others  they  were  more  than  a  second 
apart.  Five  or  six  tracings  were  taken,  and  in  all  cases  a 
movement  of  the  end  C  of  the  lever  was  seen  to  have  occurred 
with  each  vibration  of  the  membrane." 

This  is  from  Bartlett  (op.  cit.,  36) : 

"  Thomas  R.  Hazard  writes : 

" '  One  day  as  I  was  passing  down  Fifth  Avenue  I ... 
saw  Foster  and  a  stranger  standing  quietly  by  an  iron  rail- 
ing  Shortly  after  the  stranger  left,  and  Foster  joined  me 

[and]  . . .  told  me  that  the  gentleman  who  had  just  left  him 
was  an  occasional  visitant  of  his  circles,  who  had  a  short 
time  before  joined  him  on  the  avenue  and  said  to  him:  "Mr. 


146  Molecular  Telekinesis         [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

Foster,  I  wish  you  could  make  raps  somewhere  else  than 
in  your  own  room,"  to  which  Foster  replied  that  he  could 
have  them  come  anywhere !  The  gentleman  said,  "  I  will  give 
you  a  dollar  for  each  one  you  will  make  just  here."  .Where- 
upon Foster  asked  the  skeptic  to  stand  with  him  beside  the 
iron  railing  and  count  aloud  all  the  raps  as  they  were  made. 
Soon  the  raps  came  on  the  iron  railing,  and  the  gentleman 
counted  them  until  the  number  ten  was  reached,  when  a 
pause  ensued,  and  Foster  asked  if  the  raps  should  yet  go  on. 
"  No,"  said  the  gentleman ;  "  I  am  satisfied,"  suiting  his  action 
to  his  word  by  handing  Foster  a  ten  dollar  bill,  which  he 
then  showed  to  me.' " 

Of  course  the  skeptic  will  account  for  this  on  the  obvious 
hypothesis  that  Foster  lied.  I  knew  him,  and  I  don't  think 
he  did. 

In  Mr.  Armstrong's  case  he  said  of  the  raps  on  a  table 
(Pr.  VII,  158)  : 

"  They  resembled  the  sound  of  the  sparks  given  off  by  the 
prime  conductor  of  a  large  Holtz  electrical  machine, . . .  and 
the  table  always  seemed  supercharged  with  the  '  force  producing 
fluid,'  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  use  the  term,  on  every  portion  of 
the  table's  surface,  the  chairs  we  sat  on,  and  even  on  various 
articles  of  furniture  at  considerable  distance  from  us." 

From  Stainton  Moses  (Pr.  IX,  280)  : 

"  They  have  been  heard ...  in  strange  rooms  ...  in  the  country 
. . .  and  even  in  the  open  air,  under  very  curious  circumstances. 
...  At  Southend ...  a  pier  more  than  a  mile  in  length,  my 
friend  and  I ...  were  sitting  at  the  extreme  end . . .  when  raps 

came  ...  on  the  rail  in  front  of  us They  followed  us  all  along 

the  pier,  and  were  audible  at  a  great  distance,  as  indeed  any 
sound  is  if  made  on  a  long  wooden  rail.  This  was  at  4 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  At  8  p.  m.  we  went  on  to  the  pier 

again The   clear   metallic   rap  was  plainly   audible  . . .  fifty 

yards  from  me  [and]  ...  to  both  of  us  when  we  were  seventy 
yards  apart,  and  were  apparently  made  in  the  space  between  us." 

The  sounds  so  far  described,  notwithstanding  their  variety, 
have  the  common  quality  of  proceeding  from  definite  sources 
appreciable  by  the  senses.  We  now  go  on  to  a  category  of 
sounds  from  no  sensable  sources. 

Professor  Alexander  gives  the  following  in  connection  with 
the  Davis  children  (Pr.  VII,  180)  : 

"  A  peculiar  whistling  sound  was  heard  by  some — on  one 
occasion  coming  from  behind  the  curtains  drawn  before  the 


Ch.  X]          The  Davis  Children's  Raps.    Moses  147 

verandah  door,  and  on  another,  by  Mrs.  Z.  in  the  garden  path 
leading  down  to  the  gate,  where  she  had  been  seeing  some 
friends  out " 

Little  girls,  and  big  ones  too,  do  sometimes  make  "a 
peculiar  whistling  sound."  But  what  comes  from  other  me- 
diums may  suggest  that  this  one  was  not  of  the  usual  kind. 

Prof.  A.  continues: 

"  The  sound  which  has  since  developed  to  such  an  extent 
was  first  heard  by  us  on  March  23d,  1873.  At  that  time  it 

resembled  the  plucking  of  a  string  in  mid-air We  called  it 

the  Lyre  sound,  for  want  of  a  better  name A  certain  imita- 
tion of  it  could  be  made  by  slightly  touching  the  wires  of  a  piano 
at  the  upper  notes I  succeeded  also  in  making  some  re- 
semblance to  it  by  drawing  my  finger  over  the  wires  of  a  musical 
clock  which  hangs  on  the  wall  of  the  room  adjoining. ...  I  sup- 
posed that  the  piano  or  clock  must  be  used  in  some  way  to  make 
a  sound  which  seemed  to  be  in  mid-air.  This  theory  was  soon 
upset,  for  the  sound  came  in  rooms  where  there  was  no  musical 
instrument;  even  in  my  own  bedroom,  where  sometimes  the 
sound  has  been  so  loud  as  to  be  distinctly  audible  through  the 
wall  in  an  adjoining  room. . . .  The  sound  would  traverse  the 
room  and  seem  to  die  away  in  the  distance,  and  suddenly  burst 
forth  into  great  power  over  the  table,  which  appeared  In  some 
inexplicable  way  to  be  used  as  a  sounding-board.  The  wood 
of  the  table  vibrated  under  our  hands  exactly  as  it  would  have 
done  had  a  violoncello  been  twanged  while  resting  upon  it  It 
was  no  question  of  fancy  or  delusion.  The  sounds  were  at 
times  deafening,  and  alternated  between  those  made  by  the 
very  small  strings  of  a  harp  and  such  as  would  be  caused 
by  the  violent  thrumming  of  a  violoncello  resting  on  the  top 
of  a  drum. . . .  We  never  sat  without  them,  and  they  formed 
almost  the  staple  phenomenon  of  the  seance.  With  them,  as 
with  other  phenomena,  great  variety  was  caused  by  good  or 
bad  conditions." 

We  are  constantly  reminded  of  the  absence  of  definite  lines 
of  division  in  Nature:  even  if  the  sounds  above  described, 
and  to  be  described  hereafter,  were  carried  by  the  air,  their 
source  seems  to  have  been  some  molecular  action  in  the 
atoms,  as  appears  to  be  that  of  the  "  raps  "  already  described. 

Stainton  Moses  suggests  (Pr.  XI,  49,  50)  that  some  sounds 
are  independent  of  the  ear: 

"  May  30th The  peculiarity  of  the  seance  was  that  when 

I   could  hear  the  sound  no  one  else  could,   and   vice  versa. 


148  Molecular  Telekinesis        [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

I  heard  by  clairaudience  and  not  by  natural  hearing,  being 

very  deaf  with  my  cold 1  described  it  long  before  it  was 

heard  by  the  others,  and  heard  it  frequently  when  they  did  not. 
At  the  same  time  I  was  unconscious  of  sounds  apparently  made 
on  the  table  under  my  nose." 

The  sound  referred  to  in  the  foregoing  is  the  first  among 
those  indicated  in  the  following  from  Pr.  IX : 

(IX,268)  :  "...  The  most  perfect  musical  sounds  are  made 
when  I  cannot  hear  them;  and,  as  a  general  rule,  to  which  the 
exceptions  are  so  rare  as  only  to  serve  to  establish  the  prin- 
ciple, the  best  and  most  successful  manifestations  occur  when 
the  medium  is  deeply  entranced." 

(IX,279-80)  :  ". . .  Of  late  they  [the  sounds]  have  changed,  and 
are  usually  audible  to  me  before  they  strike  the  ear  of  any  other 
person.  How  far  this  may  be  attributable  to  clairaudience,  a 
faculty  lately  developed  in  me,  I  cannot  say  positively." 

(IX,342-3)  :  "  At  one  seance  as  many  as  seven  different  sounds 
were  going  on  at  the  same  time  in  different  parts  of  the  room. 
It  would  have  been  quite  impossible  for  any  one  person  to 
have  made  them.  "  MARIA  SPEER." 

Moses*  note-book  says  of  certain  sounds  (Pr.  IX,  281) : 

" They  represented  two  instruments,  the  one  of  three, 

the  other  of  seven  strings,  and  they  were  used  in  playing  thus : — 
Certain  notes  were  sounded  upon  the  three  strings,  and  these 
were  followed  by  a  run  made  as  if  by  running  a  finger-nail 
rapidly  over  the  strings  of  the  other  instrument.  The  result 
was  like  what  musical  cognoscenti  call  '  a  free  prelude ' ;  what 
I  should  describe  as  a  series  of  notes,  highly  pitched,  clear,  and 
liquid  in  their  melody,  followed  by  a  rapid  run  on  an  instrument 
of  lower  pitch.  I  speak  of  instruments,  but . . .  there  was  in  the 
room — an  ordinary  dining-room — no  musical  instrument  of  any 
kind  whatever." 

Dr.  Speer  says  (Pr.  IX,  281) : 

"  The  sound . . .  during  the  space  of  fifteen  months,  almost 

invariably  presented  itself  at  each  sitting A  sound  like  that 

of  a  stringed  instrument,  played,  or  rather  plucked,  in  mid-air, 
while  there  was  no  stringed  instrument  in  the  room.  Every 
attempt  was  subsequently  made  to  ascertain  through  what  sub- 
stance the  sound  could  be  evolved The  sounds  were  formed 

independently  of  any  material  substance. ...  In  process  of  time, 
the  manifestation  became  most  extraordinary.  It  was  almost 
impossible  (to  an  outsider  it  would  have  been  absolutely  im- 
possible) not  to  believe  that  a  large  stringed  instrument,  e.g.,  a 
violoncello,  a  guitar,  a  double  bass,  or  a  harp,  was  struck  by 


Ch.  X]          Telekinetic  Lights.    Colonel  Taylor  149 

powerful  human  fingers On  these  occasions  the  sitters  could 

distinctly  feel  a  strong  vibration  transmitted  from  the  points 
of  the  fingers  in  contact  with  the  table  up  to  the  shoulder- 
joint 

"  I  confess  myself  entirely  unable  to  give  any  idea  of  the 
way  in  which  these  remarkable  sounds  are  produced " 

We  have  already,  by  almost  insensible  degrees,  found  our- 
selves in  what  I  provisionally  assume  to  be  molecular  action 
of  the  telekinetic  force,  though  the  force  has  so  far  generally 
been  associated  with  the  molar  action.  We  will  now  leave 
that,  and  concern  ourselves  with  some  farther  phenomena 
that  are  purely  molecular,  until  we  meet  the  molar  again 
in  discussing  telekinetic  phenomena  associated  with  intelli- 
gence, into  which,  by  the  way,  we  have  already  drifted  some 
distance,  so  inextricable  from  each  other  are  the  phenomena. 

Lights 

The  molecular  manifestations  also  include  lights  which  sug- 
gest not  only  the  electric  spark  and  the  alleged  magnetic  aura, 
but  also  often  have  characteristics  peculiar  to  themselves.  Un- 
fortunately their  case,  like  all  manifestations  of  telekinesis, 
is  needlessly  prejudiced  by  their  being  generally  called  "  spirit 
lights."  The  name  of  course  tends  to  awaken  in  some  cre- 
dulity, and  in  others  skepticism,  both  of  which  tend  to  obstruct 
proper  investigation.  But  probably  every  light  from  an  un- 
known source  that  has  appeared  since  mankind  had  a  word 
meaning  "  spirit "  has  been  attributed  to  spirits.  Whatever 
such  a  word  may  mean  etymologically,  in  actual  use  it  is  no 
more  or  less  than  an  x  to  express  a  mode  of  force  as  yet  un- 
correlated  with  the  modes  already  familiar.  So  it  was  with 
the  lights  of  electricity,  whether  seen  in  the  clouds  or  in  the 
"  artificial "  spark. 

Lieutenant-Colonel  Taylor,  a  frequent  contributor  to  the 
Pr.  S.  P.  R.,  thus  describes  a  "spirit  light"  (Pr.  XIX,  54)  : 

" This  light  seemed  to  me  not  to  illuminate  things 

as  much  as  a  common  light  of  equal  brilliancy  would  do,  but 
perhaps  a  very  feeble  light,  when  looked  at  after  the  eye  has 
been  some  time  in  total  darkness,  may  give  an  exaggerated 
impression  of  brightness.  I  felt  no  heat  when  the  light  was 
in  my  hand,  nor  did  I  feel  the  touch  of  anything." 


150  Molecular  Telekinesis        [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

The  following  manifestation  by  Foster  (Bartlett,  op.  cit., 
p.  78)  suggests  the  lights  and  electric  crackling  from  a 
Kuhmkorff  coil. 

"  The  lights  were  turned  out  without  consulting  Mr.  Foster. 
Had  he  been  consulted,  he  would  probably  not  have  given  his 
consent,  being  as  timid  and  apparently  as  afraid  of  darkness 
as  a  child.  Two  leaves  of  the  dining-table  were  taken  out, 
intending  to  shove  the  table  together,  to  make  it  somewhat 
smaller.  But  the  table  would  not  shove.  Who  has  not  ex- 
perienced this  difficulty  with  their  dining-table!  In  this 
instance,  however,  I  consider  it  fortunate  that  the  leaves  were 
left  out.  Many  surprising  physical  manifestations  occurred, 
so  startling  in  their  nature  that  I  can  hardly  believe  that  they 
occurred  myself!  In  these  accounts  of  Foster,  I  have"  [here- 
tofore? H.  EL]  "intentionally  avoided  mentioning  the  physical 
manifestations,  and  have  thought  it  better  to  confine  myself 
entirely  to  mental  phenomena.  The  raps,  I  think,  might  be 
regarded  as  both  mental  and  physical.  Numerous  questions 
were  asked  and  answered  by  Mr.  Foster,  when  suddenly,  looking 
through  the  aperture  which  the  vacant  leaves  left  in  the  table, 
I  perceived  numerous  small  lights,  like  little  balls  of  fire,  in 
size  from  a  large  pinhead  to  that  of  a  pigeon  egg.  The  entire 
space  of  the  lower  part  of  the  table  was  filled  with  these 
electric  sparks,  and  this  to  me  was  a  wonderful  phenomenon. 
. . .  [At  each  rap.  H.H.]  "  one  of  these  sparks,  or  balls  of 
fire,  darted  against  the  side  of  the  table  or  on  the  floor,  pro- 
ducing the  rapping,  and  disappeared.  When"  [There  were 
three  raps.  H.  H.]  "  we  could  see  three  little  balls  of  fire 
separate  themselves  from  the  others,  run  one  after  another, 
strike,  and  disappear. ...  If  the  rap  was  low,  a  little  ball  of 
fire;  just  in  proportion  to  the  loudness  of  the  rap  was  the 
size  of  the  ball  used.  A  loud  rap  evidently  required  a  large 
ball  of  fire  to  explode.  Having  discovered  this  first,  I  called 
the  attention  of  the  others  to  the  fact.  This  lasted  for  nearly 
one  hour." 

You  will  remember  Foster's  champagne  baskets  flying 
around  the  room  (Bartlett,  op.  cit.,  24).  In  that  account  it  is 
stated  that  "  what  appeared  to  be  electric  sparks  appeared  in 
many  places  in  the  room." 

Here  is  an  account  by  Moses  (Pr.  IX,  273-4) : 

" A  number  of  cones  of  soft  light  similar  to  moon- 
light appeared  in  succession,  until  a  dozen  or  more  had  been 
made.  They  presented  the  appearance  of  a  nucleus  of  soft, 
yellow  light,  surrounded  by  a  soft  haze.  They  sailed  up  from 
a  corner  of  the  room  and  gradually  died  out.  The  most  con- 


Ch.  X]  Stainton  Moses'  Lights  151 

spicuous  was  shaped  like  a  mitre  and  was  8  or  9  inches  in 

height We   determined   to   extemporise   a  cabinet   for   the 

purpose  of  developing  them." 

Why  "  a  cabinet "  ?  One  does  not  seem  to  have  been  gen- 
erally essential  to  the  production  of  lights  by  Moses,  and 
does  seem  to  have  been  generally  essential  to  the  production 
of  anything  by  mediums  more  open  to  suspicion. 

"  This  was  simply  done  by  throwing  open  the  door  between 
two  rooms,  and  hanging  in  the  doorway  a  curtain  with  » 
square  aperture  in  the  middle  of  it.  On  one  side  of  the  cur- 
tain a  table  was  put  for  the  sitters;  on  the  other  side  I  was 
placed  in  an  easy-chair,  and  was  soon  in  a  state  of  deep  trance, 
from  which  I  never  woke  until  the  stance  was  concluded.  What 
then  took  place  is  described  in  the  records  of  friends  who 
were  present.  Large  globes  of  light . .  .  sailed  out  of  the 
aperture  and  went  into  the  room  where  the  sitters  were  placed. 
They  are  described  as  of  the  same  soft,  pale  hue,  like  moon- 
light. They  were  sufficiently  bright  to  illumine  the  lintel 
and  door-posts,  and  to  cast  a  strong  reflection  into  the  room. 
Within  the  gauzy  envelope  was  a  bright  point  of  concentrated 
light,  and  the  size  varied  considerably.  The  cone  shape  pre- 
dominated, but  some  were  like  a  dumbbell,  and  others  like  a 
mass  of  luminous  vapor  revolving  round  and  falling  over  a 
central  nucleus  of  soft,  yellow  light.  They  seem  to  have  been 
carried  in  a  materialized  hand,  a  finger  of  which  was  shown 
at  request  by  placing  it  in  front  of  the  nucleus  of  light.  Round 
each  was  soft  drapery,  the  outline  of-  which  was  usually 
perfectly  distinct." 

Dr.  Thomson  of  Clifton  added  the  following  (Pr.  IX,  274)  : 

"  The  appearance  of  the  light  reminded  me  strongly  of  what 
I  have  seen  when  an  electric  discharge  is  passed  through  an 
exhausted  tube,  with  the  exception,  of  course,  of  the  latter 
being  momentary,  whereas  in  the  present  case  the  light  con- 
tinued more  or  less  for  nearly  an  hour n 

Later  Moses  says  (Pr.  IX,  331)  : 

"I  had  been  very  anxious  to  try  the  duration  of  the  light, 
because  an  imitation  of  such  lights  is  made  by  phosphorized 
oil;  but  lights  so  made  are  of  very  brief  duration.  I  believe 
that  a  favorable  trial  would  show  that  Mentor's "  [another 
"  spirit "  whom  we  shall  know  better  later.  H.  H.]  "  light 
would  last  seven  or  eight  minutes." 

Sir  William  Crookes  says  (Researches,  91)  : 

"  These,  being  rather  faint,  generally  require  the  room  to 
be  darkened.  I  need  scarcely  remind  my  readers  again  that, 


152  Molecular  Telekinesis         [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

tinder  these  circumstances,  I  have  taken  proper  precautions  to 
avoid  being  imposed  upon  by  phosphorized  oil,  or  other  means. 
Moreover,  many  of  these  lights  are  such  as  I  have  tried  to 
imitate  artificially,  but  cannot. 

"  Under  the  strictest  test  conditions,  I  have  seen  a  solid 
self-luminous  body,  the  size  and  nearly  the  shape  of  a  turkey's 
egg,  float  noiselessly  about  the  room,  at  one  time  higher  than 
anyone  present  could  reach  standing  on  tiptoe,  and  then  gently 
descend  to  the  floor.  It  was  visible  for  more  than  ten  minutes, 
and  before  it  faded  away  it  struck  the  table  three  times  with 
a  sound  like  that  of  a  hard,  solid  body.  During  this  time  the 
medium  was  lying  back,  apparently  insensible,  in  an  easy- 
chair. 

"I  have  seen  luminous  points  of  light  darting  about  and 

settling  on  the  heads  of  different  persons 1  have  seen  sparks 

of  light  rising  from  the  table  to  the  ceiling,  and  again  falling 
upon  the  table,  striking  it  with  an  audible  sound." 

Compare  Foster's  audible  lights,  a  couple  of  pages  back. 
There  are  many  similar  cases. 

Professor  Alexander  says  (Pr.  VII,  183) : 

"A  beautiful,  transparent,  bluish  light... was  one  even- 
ing seen  by  all,  except  Mr.  Davis  himself,  playing  on  his  left 
shoulder.  At  my  desire  it  moved  to  the  right  shoulder,  but 
seemed  to  have  some  difficulty  in  staying  there. . . .  The  room 
at  the  time  was  partially  darkened,  but  not  enough  to  hinder 
us  from  plainly  distinguishing  the  features  of  the  persons 
present." 

Dr.  Speer  says  (Pr.  IX,  275-6) : 

" He  told  me  to  rub  my  hands  so  as  to  generate  more 

power,  and  very  soon  another  large  light . . .  appeared 

"  The  way  of  renewing  the  light  when  it  grew  dim  was  by 

making  passes  over  it  with  the  hand They . . .  seemed  to  be 

more  easily  and  fully  developed  when  I  rubbed  my  hands  to- 
gether or  on  my  coat." 

This  seems  to  correlate  the  lights  definitely  enough  with 
the  other  modes  of  force  manifested  by  the  medium.  I  as- 
sume that  the  force  came  from  Moses  through  Speer,  though 
that  may  be  superfluous:  all  people  are  supposed  to  have 
some  power  to  gather  and  transmit  electricity,  and  Moses's 
initiative  may  have  been  enough  for  the  as  yet  mysterious 
force.  These  lights,  however,  were  unlike  any  electric  lights 
we  know,  except  those  in  vacuum  tubes. 

Lights,  like  sounds,  have  been  in  evidence  so  much  more 


Cli.  X]       Temperatures.    Matter  through  Matter  153 

frequently  in  connection  with  ostensible  intelligence,  that  I 
leave  farther  consideration  of  them  to  that  branch  of  the 
subject,  though  we  have  already  found  the  two  inevitably 
somewhat  tangled  together. 

Temperatures 

Shall  we  class  as  molar  or  molecular,  the  motion  of  air? 
It  is  inseparably  connected  with  phenomena  of  both  heat  and 
cold,  and  therefore  is  both.  As  the  reader  will  frequently  meet 
cases  hereafter,  I  will  not  take  the  trouble  to  group  them. 

As  a  specimen,  however,  take  the  following  from  Sir 
William  Crookes's  Researches,  86: 

"  These  movements,  and  indeed  I  may  say  the  same  of  every 
kind  of  phenomenon,"  [telekinetic  and  telepsychic?  H.  H.] 
"  are  generally  preceded  by  a  peculiar  cold  air,  sometimes 
amounting  to  a  decided  wind.  I  have  had  sheets  of  paper 
blown  about  by  it,  and  a  thermometer  lowered  several  degrees. 
On  some  occasions ...  I  have  not  detected  any  actual  move- 
ment of  the  air,  but  the  cold  has  been  so  intense  that  I  could 
only  compare  it  to  that  felt  when  the  hand  has  been  within  a 
few  inches  of  frozen  mercury." 

Similar  allegations  are  made  in  connection  with  the  mani- 
festations of  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  mediums. 

Passing  Matter  Through  Matter 

Here  are  the  alleged  cases  from  Sir  William  Crookes  (Re- 
searches, pp.  96-7) : 

" I  then  went  to  the  dining-room  door,  and  telling  the 

two  boys  to  go  into  the  library  and  proceed  with  their  lessons, 
I  closed  the  door  behind  them,  locked  it,  and  (according  to  my 
usual  custom  at  seances)  put  the  key  in  my  pocket. 

"  We  sat  down,  Miss  Fox  being  on  my  right  hand  and  the 
other  lady  on  my  left, ...  in  total  darkness,  I  holding  Miss 

Fox's  two  hands  in  one  of  mine  the  whole  time We  all 

heard  the  tinkling  of  a  bell,  not  stationary,  but  moving  about 
in  all  parts  of  the  room, . . .  now  touching  me  on  the  head, 
and  now  tapping  against  the  floor.  After  ringing  about  the 
room  in  this  manner  for  fully  five  minutes,  it  fell  upon  the 
table  close  to  my  hands 

"I  remarked  that  it  could  not  be  my  little  hand-bell 
which  was  ringing,  for  I  left  that  in  the  library.  (Shortly 
before  Miss  Fox  came  I  had  occasion  to  refer  to  a  book,  which 


154  Molecular  Telekinesis        [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

was  lying  on  a  corner  of  a  book-shelf.  The  bell  was  on  the 
book,  and  I  put  it  on  one  side  to  get  the  book.  That  little 
incident  had  impressed  on  my  mind  the  fact  of  the  bell  being 
in  the  library.)  The  gas  was  burning  brightly  in  the  hall 
outside  the  dining-room  door,  so  that  this  could  not  be  opened 
without  letting  light  into  the  room,  even  had  there  been  an 
accomplice  in  the  house  with  a  duplicate  key,  which  there 
certainly  was  not. 

"  I  struck  a  light.  There,  sure  enough,  was  my  own  bell 
lying  on  the  table  before  me.  I  went  straight  into  the  library. 
A  glance  showed  that  the  bell  was  not  where  it  ought  to  have 
been.  I  said  to  my  eldest  boy,  'Do  you  know  where  my  little 
bell  is  ? '  '  Yes,  papa,'  he  replied,  '  there  it  is,'  pointing  to 
where  I  had  left  it.  He  looked  up  as  he  said  this,  and  then 
continued,  '  No — it's  not  there,  but  it  was  there  a  little  time 
ago.'  '  How  do  you  mean  ? — has  anyone  come  in  and  taken 
it?'  'No,'  said  he,  'no  one  has  been  in;  but  I  am  sure  it  was 
there,  because  when  you  sent  us  in  here  out  of  the  dining-room 
J.'  (the  youngest  boy)  '  began  ringing  it  so  that  I  could  not 
go  on  with  my  lessons,  and  I  told  him  to  stop.'  J.  corroborated 
this,  and  said  that,  after  ringing  it,  he  put  the  bell  down  where 
he  had  found  it." 

Sir  William  gives  another  where  Home  was  the  agent,  in 
Pr.  VI. 

This  is  from  Stainton  Moses  (Pr.  IX,  306,  note) : 

"April  2d.  The  medium  was  greatly  convulsed,  and  sud- 
denly a  large  stone  was  rolled  violently  across  the  table  and 
fell  on  Mr.  Percival's  knee.  The  stone  had  been  brought  from 
the  hall  through  a  locked  door,  every  hand  at  the  table  being 
held  during  the  process.  Mr.  Percival  had  been  anxious  to 
have  a  proof  of  '  matter  passing  through  matter,'  and  this 
indeed  was  a  solid  one,  as  the  stone  was  very  large  and 
heavy.— M.  S."  (Dr.  [Mrs.?]  Speer.) 

Podmore  gives  another  instance  (Modern  Spiritualism,  II, 
69): 

"  Communicated  to  the  Dialectical  Society  by  Mr.  Fusedale : 
. . .  The  children  and  my  wife  would  see  the  things  they  [the 
"  spirits."  H.H.]  . . .  took  (in  particular  a  brooch  of  my  wife's) 
appear  to  pass  through  solid  substances,  such  as  the  wall  or  the 
doors." 

If  matter  can  pass  through  matter,  the  fundamental  estab- 
lished axiom  regarding  it — that  two  bodies  cannot  occupy 
the  same  space  at  the  same  time,  is  mistaken,  and  our  notions 


Ch.  X]  Materialization  155 

regarding  matter  must  be  revised — we  must  face  the  question 
if  the  molecules  of  one  body  can  pass  through  the  inter- 
molecular  spaces  of  another  without  either  body  losing  its 
shape.  The  X-rays  suggest  some  sort  of  an  answer.  The 
same  is  true  with  a  vengeance,  if  there  is  a  substantial  founda- 
tion for  the  reports  of  materialization,  and  perhaps  our  later 
consideration  of  them  may  give  us  a  clue  towards  an  explana- 
tion of  the  new  aspects  of  the  subject 

Materialization 

Home,  Foster,  Stainton  Moses,  and  perhaps  one  or  two 
other  agents  in  good  standing,  are  alleged  to  have  caused 
momentary  phenomena  (no  lasting  ones  are  yet  alleged  to 
have  been  produced)  possessing  one  or  more  of  the  attributes 
heretofore  associated  with  matter — such  as  visibility,  audi- 
bility, odor,  taste,  temperature,  texture,  and  resistance  to 
pressure;  and  there  are  several  well-known  agents  of  ques- 
tionable standing  who  claim  to  have  done  the  same,  among 
whom  Eusapia  Palladino  is  most  prominent. 

Probably  the  majority  of  investigators  now  accept  what  we 
will  provisionally  call  the  other  forms  of  telekinesis  as  fact, 
and  are  trying  to  correlate  them  with  our  previous  knowledge. 
Materialization,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  still  trying  to 
account  for  by  trickery  and  illusion.  And  yet  what  little 
character  Home  had,  seems  to  have  been  so  sincere!  And 
Stainton  Moses,  had  he  been  a  fraud  (which  nothing  told 
about  him  seems  to  encourage),  would  hardly  have  been  con- 
tented to  defraud  so  small  a  circle;  and  as  to  poor  Eusapia 
Palladino,  she  is  her  own  worst  enemy,  and  that  New  York 
report  for  many  reasons  cannot  quite  overbalance  the  earlier 
reports. 

One  of  the  men  who  joined  in  it  told  me  that  Tie  did 
so  with  a  mental  reservation,  and  I  am  credibly  informed 
that  another  confessed  the  same.  The  first  one  told  me  that 
he  passed  his  hands  between  the  floor  and  the  legs  of  a 
table  raised  by  Eusapia,  and  found  the  space  absolutely  free ; 
also  that  the  table  could  not  have  been  lifted  from  above 
by  any  known  agency,  unless  telekinesis  may  be  accounted 
a  known  agency.  From  the  evidence,  I  believe  that  whatever 


156  Molecular  Telekinesis         [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

Eusapia's  frauds,  some  of  her  manifestations  of  telekinesis 
were  genuine.  This  raises  some  presumption  that  some  of 
her  materializations  may  have  been  too.  I  don't  see,  however, 
that  it  makes  much  difference  whether  they  were  or  not:  the 
evidence  of  her  fraud  does  not  fatally  detract  from  the  credi- 
bility of  the  witnesses  in  the  other  cases. 

I  am  not  at  all  prepared  to  deprecate  the  efforts  to  hunt 
up  tricks ;  at  the  same  time,  after  the  impossibilities  that  have 
become  the  whole  world's  actualities  during  the  last  forty 
years,  there  does  seem  about  as  much  justification  for  work- 
ing provisionally  on  the  hypothesis  that  a  respectably 
vouched-for  marvel  is  true,  as  upon  the  old  one  that  it  is 
false. 

It  may  eventually  seem  that  the  claims  of  materialization 
may  gain  a  little  strength  from  the  possibility  that  it  may  be 
a  corollary  of  telekinesis.  The  case  for  materialization,  how- 
ever, is  different  from  that  for  the  simpler  forms  of  tele- 
kinesis. That  is  enough  to  convince  anybody  but  the  class 
of  skeptics  who  take  nothing  on  testimony  unless  they  have 
experienced  the  like  themselves,  and  are  much  more  energetic 
in  denying  the  experience  of  others  than  in  enlarging  their 
own.  There  are  scores,  probably  hundreds,  of  mediums  who 
have  given  well  attested  cases  of  molar  and  molecular  tele- 
kinesis, but  there  are  hardly  half  a  dozen  whose  cases  of 
materialization  are  worthy  of  any  consideration.  To  begin 
a  few  well  supported  instances  with  a  very  mild  example: 

From  Bartlett  (op.  cit.,  p.  64)  : 

"A  gentleman,  accompanied  by  two  ladies  dressed  in  deep 
mourning,  visited  Mr.  Foster The  seance  had  only  con- 
tinued a  short  time  when  the  elder  lady  said,  '  Sarah  Jane, 
behave  yourself,  and  stop  hunching  me.'  '  Why,  mother,  I 
am  not  hunching  you,  I  am  hunched  myself.'  Hundreds  have 
testified  that  while  attending  the  seances  they  have  been 
touched  by  a  hand,  on  the  forehead,  on  the  shoulder,  or  knee. 
Was  it  imagination  or  a  fact  ? " 

If  this  phenomenon  was  genuine,  Foster  produced  the  dis- 
tinguishing effect  of  matter — resistance — of  which  more  later. 
But  this  is  the  only  case  from  Foster  I  recall,  and  Bartlett 
overlooked  it  when  he  told  me  that  all  the  materialization  he 
had  seen  (obviously  from  others)  was  fraudulent. 


Ch.  X]          Crookes  on  Moses'  Materializations  157 

As  we  shall  see  later,  materialized  hands  are  quite  gener- 
ally alleged  to  accompany  the  lights  in  the  Moses  phenomena. 

In  the  notes  already  quoted  from  Sir  William  Crookes, 
some  indications  of  "materialization"  have  incidentally  ap- 
peared. Here  are  some  more  (Pr.  VI,  106,  et  seq.)  : 

"  Mr.  A.  R.  Wallace  then  asked  for  '  Home,  Sweet  Home.' 
A  few  bars  of  this  air  were  immediately  sounded.  He  looked 
under  the  table  and  said  he  saw  a  hand  distinctly  moving  the 
instrument "  [An  accordion.  H.  H.]  "  up  and  down,  and  play- 
ing on  the  keys.  Mr.  Home  had  one  hand  on  the  table  and 
was  holding  the  top  end  of  the  accordion,  whilst  Mr.  A.  R. 
Wallace  saw  this  hand  at  the  bottom  end  where  the  keys  were. 

"  We  then  heard  a  rustling  noise  on  a  heliotrope  which  was 
growing  in  a  flower-pot  standing  on  the  table  between  Mr. 
Home  and  Mrs.  Wm.  Crookes.  On  looking  round,  Mrs.  Wm. 
Crookes  saw  what  appeared  to  be  a  luminous  cloud  on  the 
plant.  (Mr.  Home  said  it  was  a  hand.)  We  then  heard  the 
crackling  as  of  a  sprig  being  broken  off,  and  then  a  message 
came: — 

"'Four  Ellen.' 

"  Immediately  the  white  luminous  cloud  was  seen  to  travel 
from  the  heliotrope  to  Mrs.  Wm.  C.'s  hand,  and  a  small  sprig 
of  the  plant  was  put  into  it.  She  had  her  hand  then  patted 
by  a  delicate  female  hand.  She  could  not  see  the  hand  itself, 
but  only  a  halo  of  luminous  vapor  over  her  hand." 

"  A  hand  was  seen  by  some,  and  a  luminous  cloud  by  others," 
[Did  anybody  see  Polonius's  whale?  Clouds  look  very  different 
to  different  people,  especially  to  believers  and  disbelievers. 
H.  H.]  "  pulling  the  flowers  about  which  were  in  a  stand  on 
the  table.  A  flower  was  then  seen  to  be  carried  deliberately 
and  given  to  Mrs.  Wm.  Crookes." 

The  following  is  from  Sir  William  Crookes'  Researches, 
pp.  92-3: 

"  The  hands  and  fingers  do  not  always  appear  to  me  to  be 
solid  and  life-like.  Sometimes,  indeed,  they  present  more  the 
appearance  of  a  nebulous  cloud  partly  condensed  into  the 
form  of  a  hand.  This  is  not  equally  visible  to  all  present. 
For  instance,  a  flower  or  other  small  object  is  seen  to  move; 
one  person  present  will  see  a  luminous  cloud  hovering  over 
it,  another  will  detect  a  nebulous-looking  hand,  whilst  others 
will  see  nothing  at  all  but  the  moving  flower.  I  have  more 
than  once  seen,  first  an  object  move,  then  a  luminous  cloud 
appear  to  form  about  it,  and,  lastly,  the  cloud  condense  into 
shape  and  become  a  perfectly-formed  hand.  At  this  stage,  the 
hand  is  visible  to  all  present.  It  is  not  always  a  mere  form, 
but  sometimes  appears  perfectly  life-like  and  graceful,  the 


158  Molecular  Telekinesis         [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

fingers  moving  and  the  flesh  apparently  as  human  as  that 
of  any  in  the  room.  At  the  wrist,  or  arm,  it  becomes  hazy, 
and  fades  off  into  a  luminous  cloud. 

"  To  the  touch,  the  hand  sometimes  appears  icy  cold  and 
dead;  at  other  times,  warm  and  life-like,  grasping  my  own 
with  the  firm  pressure  of  an  old  friend. 

"  I  have  retained  one  of  these  hands  in  my  own,  firmly 
resolved  not  to  let  it  escape.  There  was  no  struggle  or  effort 
made  to  get  loose,  but  it  gradually  seemed  to  resolve  itself 
into  vapor,  and  faded  in  that  manner  from  my  grasp." 

Dr.  Speer  says  regarding  Moses  (Pr.  IX,  275) : 

" The  medium  was  entranced,  and  the  controlling  spirit 

informed  me  that  he  would  endeavor  to  place  the  light  in 
the  medium's  hand.  Failing  in  this,  he  said  he  would  knock 
on  the  table  in  front  of  me.  Almost  immediately  a  light 
came  and  stood  on  the  table  close  to  me.  'You  see;  now 
listen,  I  will  knock.'  Very  slowly  the  light  rose  up,  and  struck 
three  distinct  blows  on  the  table.  '  Now  I  will  show  you  my 
hand.'  A  large,  very  bright  light  then  came  up,  and  inside 
of  it  appeared  the  materialized  hand  of  the  spirit. . . .  The 
power  having  become  exhausted,  he  exhorted  me  to  wake  the 
medium." 

From  Moses.     (Pr.  IX,  311-12) : 

"  Sunday  Evening,  May  18th,  1873 Scent  was  brought, 

not  as  before,  but  by  a  cool  wind  laden  with  the  odor.  It  was 
like  otto  [Sic  for  attar.  H.H.]  of  roses,  very  powerful.  As 
it  passed  round  the  circle  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Speer  and  I  saw  a  figure 
carrying  it  apparently.  I  also  saw  a  figure  in  the  middle  of  the 
table  when  the  lyre  sound  was  heard  there." 

It  seems  to  me  that  all  these  odors  we  are  about  smell  more 
of  imagination  than  of  anything  else.  We  shall  meet  them 
again. 

(Pp.  309-10)  :  "  Wednesday,  May  7th,  1873. ...  We  all  saw  a 
hand  descend  from  the  top  of  the  curtain  and  play  the  accordion. 
It  was  a  large  hand,  and  its  reflection  on  the  window-blind 
was  strong.  After  this  a  head  showed  in  similar  way.  When 
Mrs.  Crookes  was  told  to  go  into  the  room  and  occupy  the 
chair ...  a  form  was  materialized  as  far  as  the  middle.  It  floated 
near  the  folding  doors,  and  advanced  towards  Mrs.  Crookes,  who 
screamed,  and  it  vanished. 

"  Mrs.  Crookes,  to  whom  I  (F.  W.  H.  Myers)  have  shown  this 
account,  makes  the  following  comments  (Pr.  IX,  310-11) : 

" Mr.  Home  then  left  me  and  stood  between  the  two 

rooms.  The  accordion  was  immediately  taken  from  his  hand 


Ch.  X]    Noses  and  Cox  on  Home's  Materializations        159 

by  a  cloudy  appearance,  which  soon  seemed  to  condense  into 
a  distinct  human  form,  clothed  in  a  filmy  drapery,  stand- 
ing near  Mr.  Home  between  the  two  rooms.  The  accordion 
began  to  play  (I  do  not  remember  whether  on  this  occasion 
there  was  any  recognized  melody),  and  the  figure  gradually 
advanced  towards  me  till  it  almost  touched  me,  playing  con- 
tinuously. It  was  semi-transparent,  and  I  could  see  the  sitters 
through  it  all  the  time.  Mr.  Home  remained  near  the  sliding 
doors.  As  the  figure  approached  I  felt  an  intense  cold,  getting 
stronger  as  it  got  nearer,"  [We  shall  meet  much  of  this  change 
of  temperature  later.  H.  H.]  "  and  as  it  was  giving  me  the 
accordion  I  could  not  help  screaming.  The  figure  immediately 
seemed  to  sink  into  the  floor  to  the  waist,  leaving  only  the 
head  and  shoulders  risible,  still  playing  the  accordion,  which 
was  then  about  a  foot  off  the  floor.  Mr.  Home  and  my  husband 
came  to  me  at  once,  and  I  have  no  clear  recollection  of  what 
then  occurred,  except  that  the  accordion  did  not  cease  playing 
immediately. 

"  Mr.  Serjeant  Cox  was  rather  angry  at  my  want  of  nerve, 
and  exclaimed :  '  Mrs.  Crookes,  you  have  spoilt  the  finest  mani- 
festation we  have  ever  had.'  I  have  always  regretted  that  my 
want  of  presence  of  mind  brought  the  phenomena  to  so  abrupt 
a  termination." 

"  Thursday,  December  HI h. —Douglas  House.  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
S.  and  I  (M.) — The  seance  was  short.  I  questioned  Imperator  " 
[A  "  spirit "  of  whom  we  shall  learn  more  hereafter.  H.H.]  "  as 
to  a  vision  I  had  had  on  the  previous  night.  He  said  that  he 
had  appeared  to  me.  He  was  somewhat  different  in  appearance 
to  what  had  been  described.  I  asked  whether  I  should  see 
him  again.  He  knocked  out :  '  Watch.'  The  clouds  of  light, 
which  had  gathered  as  usual  round  me,  lifted  and  went  to 
my  right  hand.  They  condensed  gradually  into  a  pillar,  and 
finally  into  a  form,  majestic,  stately,  and  noble  in  mien.  The 
body  was  draped  as  with  a  toga,  though  that  might  simply 
have  been  the  spirit  drapery.  The  right  arm  was  extended 
and  pointed  towards  me.  The  face  was  the  face  of  my  vision, 
though  not  so  distinct.  I  asked  that  I  might  be  touched,  and 
the  figure  slowly  stepped  towards  me,  but  did  not  touch  me. 
Finally  it  faded  away  very  gradually  until  it  was  dissipated  in 
luminous  mist.  Dr.  and  Mrs.  S.  saw  misty  light,-  but  nothing 
more.  I  asked  who  it  was,  and  '  Myself '  was  rapped,  but  in 
Imperator's  knocks." 

Vastly  more  impressive  than  the  child's  "  It's  me,"  but  not 
a  whit  more  intelligent. 

Imperator  knew  a  language  not  evolved  till  a  couple  of 
thousand  years  after  his  death.  So  they  are  learning  in  the 
other  world! 


160  Molecular  Telekinesis        [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

In  the  many  cases  of  which  a  few  are  here  given,  Home 
and  Stainton  Moses  are,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  only  persons 
(except  Foster  in  the  foregoing  very  mild  case)  who  are  said 
to  have  produced  materializations  without  the  conjunction 
of  cabinets,  curtains,  partial  darkness,  and  other  accessories 
favorable  to  illusion.  Eusapia  Palladino's  manifestations  have 
all  been  open  to  these  objections,  as  well  as  to  the  one  from 
her  frequent  trickery.  On  the  assumption,  however,  that 
any  materializations  have  been  genuine,  there  is  room  for 
some  plausible  guessing  as  to  their  relations  to  known  modes 
of  force. 

As  has  been  seen,  hands,  limbs,  faces,  and  entire  human 
figures  seem  to  appear.  Sometimes  objects  are  moved  by 
apparently  material  hands.  These  hands  are  grasped  by  the 
company.  Sometimes  they  feel  natural,  sometimes  cold  and 
clammy.  All  these  phenomena  are  classed  as  "materializa- 
tions." Now  what  do  we  so  far  know  of  "  materialization  " 
— of  "  matter  "  ?  It  has  been  followed  down  through  atoms, 
molecules,  ions,  until  the  latest  view  is  that  each  portion 
of  it  is  an  aggregate  of  units  of  force.  All  the  phenomena 
of  matter  that  we  know  of,  save  resistance,  we  have  long 
known  as  manifestations  of  force  in  vibration — heat  waves, 
light  waves,  sound  waves,  and  the  rest;  and  now  resistance 
seems  to  have  been  reduced,  with  the  rest,  to  a  mode  of 
force.  Our  conceptions  are  gradually  changing  from  those 
of  two  universes  of,  respectively,  "  matter  "  and  "  mind,"  to 
a  single  universe  of  vibrations,  all  of  it,  of  course,  objective 
to  consciousness,  as  of  old.  Of  the  greater  harmony  of  the 
later  conception  with  our  latest  knowledge,  there  seems  little 
question,  but  it  is  as  revolutionary  as  was  the  conception  of 
evolution  from  inferior  ancestors;  and,  while  it  is  not  as 
repugnant  to  our  habitual  feelings  as,  at  first,  was  the  Dar- 
winian conception,  it  will  take  some  time  to  make  the  unified 
universe  of  vibrations  a  permanent  and  consistent  factor  in 
our  thinking.  But  that  it  will  in  time  become  not  only 
that,  but  a  welcome  and  fruitful  one,  seems  highly  possible. 

Till  lately  we  have  supposed  we  knew  two  worlds — one 
of  mind,  and  one — which  includes  our  own  bodies — external 
to  mind.  Each  of  these  worlds  has  always  been  at  bottom 


Ch.  X]  Speculations  on  Materialization  161 

a  mystery,  and  the  relation  between  them  a  mystery.  Each 
produces  phenomena  in  the  other,  and  yet  to  imagine  mind 
and  matter  turning  into  each  other,  is  very  difficult,  and 
until  lately  has  been  impossible.  But  now  it  really  does 
seem  as  if  the  division  between  them  might  be  but  superficial 
and  often  merely  one  of  those  provisional  lines  with  which 
our  minds  are  constantly  dividing,  in  the  effort  to  conquer, 
the  essential  unity  of  Nature. 

In  the  chase  that  analysis  and  hypothesis  have  made  after 
the  smallest  particle  of  matter,  they  now  seem  to  have  chased 
all  the  particles  away,  and  found  nothing  really  there  but 
psychical  influences  that  awaken  in  us  the  psychical  effects 
which  we  call  resistance,  roughness,  smoothness,  form,  color, 
etc.,  etc.,  just  as  in  our  visions,  sleeping  or  waking,  we  ex- 
perience those  same  sensations,  without  the  intervention  of 
any  particle  of  "matter."  If  there  is,  then,  after  all,  but 
one  source  of  sensation — mind  acting  on  mind,  "  materializa- 
tion "  is  not  impossible,  and  there  is  no  longer  any  necessity 
for  reading  libraries  to  find  out  that  we  don't  know  how 
mind  can  act  on  body,  or  body  on  mind. 

Now  as,  in  our  experience,  mechanical  energy,  muscular 
energy,  nervous  energy,  heat,  light,  electrical  power,  and  the 
rest,  are  constantly  transmuted  into  each  other,  is  it  not  easily 
conceivable  that  any  one  of  them  may  be  transmutable  into 
resistance  to  pressure?  Nay,  a  step  farther,  is  it  improbable 
that  the  telekinetic  force  may  belong  with  the  rest  in  a 
mutually  interchangeable  group,  which  can  produce  on  our 
waking  perceptions  as  well  as  in  our  dreams,  all  the  effects 
which,  in  certain  combinations,  we  recognize  as  "  matter "  ? 
On  this  hypothesis,  the  force  manifested  by  or  through  the 
materializers  can  (not  inconsistently)  be  assumed  to  manifest 
itself  as  "  matter,"  including  such  aggregates  of  force  as  we 
are  familiar  with  in  the  forms  which  usually  perform  certain 
functions — as  hands  which  move  things. 

Another  guess.  The  supply  of  force  connected  with  any 
one  materializer  is,  of  course,  limited.  Even  the  alleged 
"  messages  "  through  the  mediums  assert  that,  and  the  accom- 
panying phenomena  illustrate  it.  When,  on  hypothesis,  the 
telekinetic  mode  is  transmuted  into  the  modes  which,  in  certain 
combinations  and  proportions,  impress  us  as  "  matter,"  that 


162  Molecular  Telekinesis        [Bk.  II,  Ft.  I 

impression  can  last  no  longer  than  the  amount  of  force 
available  for  the  effect,  holds  out.  Hence  the  force  which 
manifests  itself  as  a  hand  grasped  by  the  sitter,  gradually 
becomes  exhausted — that  is,  gradually  changes,  as  all  modes 
of  force  do,  into  other  modes — and  the  hand  "  fades  "  away. 

Still  another  guess.  The  aggregate  of  modes  of  force — 
waves  of  light,  heat,  resistance,  etc.,  which  produce  the  im- 
pression of,  say,  a  hand  or  a  complete  human  form,  with 
its  drapery  if  you  please — of  all  those  modes,  only  enough 
may  be  present,  at  any  moment,  to  produce  a  portion  of  the 
phenomena  usually  impressing  us  as  matter.  The  heat-mode 
may  be  absent,  and  the  "  hand  "  feels  cold.  The  sight-mode 
alone  may  be  present,  the  resistance-mode  lacking,  and  the 
sitter's  hand  passes  through  the  only  partially  "  materialized  " 
hand,  or  the  partially  materialized  human  figure ;  or  the  spec- 
tator, trying  to  grasp  the  human  figure  that  he  sees,  passes 
through  it. 

Somewhere  about  the  middle  sixties,  I  saw  a  play  or  two 
at  Wallack's,  in  which  the  visible  elements,  without  the  audible 
and  incompressible  ones,  were  successfully  introduced  by 
optical  machinery.  Moving  figures  apparently  as  "  real "  as 
the  actual  actors,  were  placed  on  the  stage,  and  the  actual 
actors  walked  right  through  them. 

The  apparent  hands  or  more  complete  figures  which  oppose 
no  resistance,  nevertheless  are  said  to  move  objects.  Even 
if  they  do,  it  is  consistent  with  the  hypothesis  that,  at  such 
moments,  the  resistance-mode  of  force  is  temporarily  added 
to  the  sight-mode. 

We  even  appear  to  have  the  resistance-mode  separated  from 
all  the  others — e.g.,  from  visibility,  etc.  (Cf.  Foster's  case 
ante.)  I  doubt  if  anj'body  can  believe  the  account  of  the 
attempt  at  independent  writing  by  the  pencil  and  the  lath 
on  pages  176-7,  and  similar  cases,  without  assuming  an 
invisible  and  an  inaudible  but  resisting  agent,  or  even  per- 
sonality, handling  the  two  objects.  This  conception  is  some- 
thing more  than  mere  unthinking  anthropomorphism. 

Now  a  question,  in  regard  to  which  perhaps  the  reader 
will  prefer  to  do  his  own  guessing.  If  the  alleged  partial 
and  temporary  manifestations  of  human  figures  do  really 
come  through  the  thinking  and  feeling  entities  called  Home, 


Ch.  X]        "Spirits"  Superfluous  in  Telekinesis  163 

Moses,  and  many  others,  whence  come  the  complete  and  life- 
long manifestations  of  human  beings  that  we  know  and  are? 
Was  Carlyle  stretching  language  very  far  in  calling  us  all 
spirits?  "Ghosts,"  I  believe,  was  his  word.  Do  not  our 
latest  knowledge  and  best  thinking  result  in  the  idea — old 
in  many  forms — that  we  are  but  expressions  of  a  measureless 
force  which  is  ourselves  and  also  behind  ourselves?  Would 
any  person  given  to  the  old  phraseology  be  very  fantastic  in 
calling  us  thoughts  of  the  divine  mind? 

Please  notice  that  hitherto  this  exposition,  so  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  keep  the  threads  distinct  in  spite  of  the  in- 
evitable tangle  with  "spiritualism,"  has  referred  simply  to 
a  mode,  or  modes,  of  force,  manifested,  or  alleged  to  be 
manifested,  like  electricity  and  magnetism,  in  mechanical 
action,  and  in  the  production  of  lights  and  sounds;  and, 
unlike  any  modes  of  force  previously  known,  in  the  pro- 
duction, without  the  use  of  matter,  of  objects  sometimes  re- 
sisting pressure  and  sometimes  showing  other  attributes  of 
matter.  The  word  "spirit"  and  its  derivatives  have  been 
used  a  few  times,  generally  in  passages  quoted,  as,  at  the  pres- 
ent stage  of  human  intelligence,  it  is  inevitable  it  should  be 
in  the  discussion  of  any  phenomena  not  yet  correlated  with 
familiar  ones.  So  far,  however,  we  have  really  simply  en- 
countered nothing  more  than  new  modes  of  force.  As  far 
as  concerns  the  merely  kinetic  side,  the  production  of  motion 
in  masses  or  molecules,  it  seems  already  as  well  correlated 
with  the  other  modes  of  force  we  know,  as,  say,  the  electro- 
magnetic mode  was  a  century  ago :  for : 

(I)  We  know  its  source,  which  is  the  human  organism: 
for  it  is  manifested  only  in  the  presence  of  specially  endowed 
human  beings,  and  never,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  their  absence, 
though  Sir  William  Crookes  thinks  that  probably  all  human 
beings  have  it,  some,  however,  in  inappreciable  amounts,  and 
I  have  already  suggested  the  possibility  of  its  existence  in 
other  animals.     Much  testimony  indicates  the  possibility  of 
one  person — possibly  only  a  specially  endowed  one,  collecting 
the  power  from  others.     So  with  electricity. 

(II)  We  know  that  it  is  a  mode  of  chemical  energy  stored 
up  in  food  and  air,  and  is  extracted  from  them  by  human 


164  Molecular  Telekinesis        [Bk.  II,  Ft.  I 

beings,  just  as  muscular  and  some  kinds  of  intellectual  force 
are. 

(Ill)  We  know  approximately,  that  it  is  quantitatively 
transmuted  from  those  possessing  it:  for  their  other  modes 
of  force  are  depleted  in  apparent,  though  not  yet  closely- 
tested,  proportion  to  the  manifestations  of  this  one. 

So  far  as  we  have  got,  then,  there  is  nothing  more  super- 
normal or  "  spiritual "  about  the  mode  of  force  known  as 
telekinetic,  than  about  any  other;  and  we  can  expect  to  keep 
on  correlating  it  with  the  other  modes,  as  we  have  correlated 
each  of  them  with  their  fellows,  and  also  to  get  practical 
advantages  from  it  as  we  have  from  them. 

Magnetism  is  unquestionably  telekinetic,  and  it  might  not 
be  a  strain  of  language  to  call  electricity  so,  and  even  heat 
and  light.  So  the  mere  capacity  to  act  without  contact  does 
not  necessarily  entitle  the  new  force  more  than  any  of  the 
others,  to  the  name. 

As  magnetic  aurse  seem  at  last  to  be  established,  and  as  the 
new  mode  of  force  has  also  been  associated  with  aurae  and  other 
lights  without  heat,  its  association  with  magnetism  seems 
very  close;  and  as  it  is,  so  far  as  we  know,  manifested  only 
by  human  beings,  anthropo-magnetism  might  be  a  good  name 
for  it ;  buf  as  there  is  a  strong  probability  that  it  may  also 
exist,  as  electricity  does,  in  some,  if  not  all,  of  the  lower 
animals,  a  more  general  name  would  perhaps  be  safer,  and 
I  have  already  used  zoomagnetism.  I  had  written  this  word 
several  times  before  I  knew  that  Dr.  Liebeault  had  used  it 
in  a  widely  different  connection,  now  virtually  obsolete.  I 
prefer  to  stick  to  it  until  mine  too  becomes  obsolete,  especially 
as,  whatever  may  be  the  defects  of  such  a  name,  it  is  a  step 
toward  embracing  this  new  mode  of  force  in  the  "natural," 
and  correlating  it  with  the  modes  we  know  better. 

But  have  we  not  merely  got  back  to  our  old  discarded 
acquaintance  Animal  Magnetism,  seeking  to  be  restored  to 
credit  under  a  new  Greek  first-name  ?  No :  this  is  an  entirely 
different  character,  and  the  different  name  may  perhaps  be 
found  to  have  uses  that  more  than  counterbalance  the  objec- 
tions to  its  old  associations. 

The  suspicion  that  the  -  so-called  telekinetic  force  may  be 
magnetic,  not  only  suggests  its  correlation  with  the  modes 


Ch.  X]  Possible  Uses  of  Telekinesis  165 

of  force  generally  recognized  under  that  name,  but  with 
some  other  modes  which  are  yet  but  faintly  recognized,  or 
regarded  as  illusions  or  frauds. 

These  other  modes  would  be  partly  explained  if  it  should 
be  found  that  heat  in  contact  with  a  living  human  body 
possessing  marked  telekinetic  power,  can  be  converted  into 
telekinetic  power  and  stored  in  the  system.  But  to  com- 
plete the  explanation,  Home's  non-combustion  of  the  hand- 
kerchief, recited  some  pages  farther  on,  would  also  have  to 
be  accounted  for :  so  a  more  probable  hypothesis  would  be  that 
zoomagnetism  is  repellent  of  heat,  and  can  be  conveyed  to 
vegetable  fiber  generally,  as  we  have  abundant  evidence  that 
it  can  to  wood. 

These  questions  will  probably  soon  be  settled  in  the  labora- 
tory. I  am  surprised  that  they  do  not  appear  to  have  already 
received  more  attention  from  such  men  as  Sir  William 
Crookes  and  Sir  William  Barrett.  They  may  have  had  it, 
however,  without  the  investigators  being  yet  ready  to  report, 
although  the  former  has  lately  said,  in  effect,  that  for  many 
years  he  has  been  kept  so  busy  with  the  old  modes  of  force 
that  he  has  had  little  time  for  the  new  ones. 

Possible  Uses  of  Telekinesis 

If  an  electric  eel  were  to  make  himself  disagreeable  to  a 
tadpole,  the  tadpole  would  probably  not  gain  from  the  ex- 
perience a  very  definite  idea  of  the  mode  of  force  which 
moves  the  Morse  recording  instrument,  the  telephone,  the 
trolley-car,  the  electric  autos  on  land  and  water  and  in  air, 
and  the  "  wireless."  The  boys  of  whom  I  was  one,  who  saw 
the  playing  with  the  same  force  in  the  Yale  laboratory  in  the 
early  sixties,  had  practically  little  more  idea  of  its  later  uses 
than  the  tadpole  would  have ;  and  indeed  Galvani,  Volta,  and 
Ampere  could  not  have  had  much  more  realization  than  we 
boys  had,  of  the  possibilities  lurking  in  the  novel  phenomena 
which  attracted  their  attention. 

The  new  modes  of  force  we  have  been  considering  may 
have  possibilities  even  more  revolutionary  than  those  of  gal- 
vanism and  electricity.  It  seems  not  unreasonable  to  presume 
that  so  far  as  the  occurrences  grouped,  perhaps  unwarrantably, 
under  the  name  of  telekinesis,  surpass  in  interest  the  picking 


166  Molecular  Telekinesis        [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

up  of  paper  by  glass  or  amber  rubbed  with  silk,  or  even  the 
modest  laboratory  performances  which  were  all  that  was 
known  of  electricity  fifty  years  ago,  that  far  at  least  will 
zoomagnetism  eventually  expand  our  reactions  with  the  uni- 
verse beyond  the  expansion  given  to  them  by  electricity. 

We  may,  even  at  the  risk  of  "  the  dignity  of  letters," 
amuse  ourselves  with  a  few  of  the  possibilities :  young  couples 
could  place  the  furniture  in  their  new  flats  independently  of 
the  servant  problem;  the  mountains  might  not  be  made  to 
come  to  Mahomet,  instead  of  Mahomet's  being  obliged  to  go 
to  them,  but  many  smaller  things  could  be  brought,  even 
perhaps  through  obstacles  that  are  now  as  impermeable  by 
matter  as  we  once  supposed  them  to  be  by  light  and  electricity ; 
non-swimmers  could  (as  we  shall  learn  (?)  in  the  next  chap- 
ter) levitate  themselves  above  water,  though  perhaps  it  would 
be  too  bold  a  flight  to  imagine  those  going  down  to  the  sea  in 
ships  lifting  themselves  and  their  ships  over  the  shoals  or  off 
from  the  rocks,  though  persons  threatened  by  runaway  horses, 
automobiles,  or  trolleys,  or  railroad  trains  could  simply  levi- 
tate themselves  over  the  dangerous  objects,  if  indeed  there 
should  be  need  of  encountering  such  objects :  for  levitation 
might  make  most  human  transits,  if  they  were  no  longer  than 
the  limits  imposed  by  food  supply  and  digestive  power,  aerial 
instead  of  terrestrial,  though  it  is  not  yet  time  to  sell  out 
aeroplane  stock  at  a  loss ;  we  might  not,  for  lack  of  matches, 
have  to  go  smokeless  with  tobacco  in  our  pockets,  or  fireless 
with  fuel  on  hand,  though  the  indications  of  the  new  force 
being  mutable  into  heat  are  as  yet  scant:  the  evidence  re- 
garding its  power,  or  some  kindred  power,  to  resist  heat  is, 
however,  more  positive,  as  we  shall  soon  see.  If  that  power 
becomes  developed  at  the  outset  of  conflagrations,  a  man 
could  render  himself  to  some  extent  immune  against  injury 
by  fire,  often  long  enough  to  escape  danger,  and  perhaps 
could  even  be  his  own  fire  extinguisher.  As  to  light,  in  an 
unanticipated  and  often  dangerous  darkness,  the  human  sys- 
tem could  supply  its  own. 

These  suggestions  are  of  course  as  much  jokes  as  prophecies, 
but  what  would  have  seemed  forty  years  ago,  suggestions 
of  the  electric  light,  the  trolley-car,  the  telephone,  and  wireless 
telegraphy? 


CHAPTER  XI 
MOLAR  TELEPSYCHIC  TELEKINESIS 

THOUGH  I  have  tried  to  restrict  myself  to  physical  matters, 
we  have  already  found  them  inevitably  tangled  up  with 
psychic  ones.  In  fact  I  doubt  if  we  know  of  one  independ- 
ently of  the  other — if  their  separation  is  anything  more  than 
one  of  the  provisional  mental  processes  which  we  have  so 
often  found  classification  to  be.  And  yet  until  the  recent 
strong  indications  that  the  incompressibility  of  matter  is, 
like  its  visibility  and  other  sense  impressions,  but  vibration, 
the  gulf  between  mind  and  matter  was  largely  regarded  as 
impassable;  but  now  it  is  very  doubtful  if  the  mind  can 
really  make  a  coherent  conception  of  any  such  impassable 
gulf.  Nevertheless  from  some  points  of  view  it  seems  im- 
passable, and  I  have  already  spoken  of  it  as  such,  and  flatly 
guessed  the  other  way. 

Here  on  the  vague  borderland  of  knowledge  we  get  as 
badly  mixed  up  as  if  we  were  philosophers;  but  then  we 
acknowledge  it.  And  though  the  borderland  moves  outward, 
those  who  enter  it  at  any  stage,  always  must  get  mixed  up. 
Some  of  them  have  made  all  the  discoveries,  nevertheless. 

An  impassable  gulf  between  the  physical  and  the  psychical 
had  long  been  regarded  as  necessary  to  the  possibility  of  an 
immortal  soul  in  a  mortal  body.  It  was  held  that  without 
that  impassable  gulf,  the  body  must  drag  down  the  soul  with 
the  body's  death.  It  does  not  seem  to  have  entered  into  any- 
body's mind  that  the  vibrations  constituting  body  might 
in  time  even  take  on  the  qualities  of  soul,  unless  indeed  there 
was  some  such  guess  symbolized  in  the  doctrine  of  the  resur- 
rection of  the  body.  On  re-reading  the  foregoing  sentence 
after  some  months,  I  find  it,  like  many  sentences  more 
nearly  famous,  rather  deficient  in  clear  meaning.  Yet  in 
these  gropings  we  must  constantly  encounter  vague  impres- 
sions, and  it  may  be  well  to  let  some  of  them  stand  in  the 
167 


168  Molar  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pi  I 

hope  that  here  and  there  may  be  one  which  in  time  will  turn 
out  a  clue  to  something. 

The  telekinetic  force  we  have  been  considering  has  a  pecu- 
liarity that,  so  far  as  I  know,  was  never  until  about  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  generally  associated  with  the  mani- 
festation of  any  recognized  mode  of  force.  We  have  been 
accustomed  to  intelligent  reactions  from  human  beings,  some- 
times through  inanimate  things  obviously  regulated  by  them ; 
but  through  telekinesis  we  are  getting  intelligent  reactions 
from  inanimate  things  without  the  intelligence  behind  them 
being  clearly  understood. 

At  first,  the  common  inference  was  of  course  that  the  things 
were  moved  by  "  spirits,"  but  many  of  the  best  investigators 
incline  to  the  opinion  that  the  intelligence  regulating  the 
movements  was  the  intelligence  initiating  them — that  the 
medium,  perhaps  involuntarily,  makes  the  intelligent  re- 
actions. 

That  may  be  true,  but  anybody  who  knows  anything  about 
it  (which  but  few  people  have  taken  the  trouble  to)  knows 
at  least  that  if  the  only  intelligence  concerned  is  that  of  the 
medium,  the  intelligence  does  not  always  act  through  the 
muscles,  or  even  the  will. 

Perhaps  it  is  well  to  say  before  beginning  on  these  things, 
that  I  have  no  settled  opinion  regarding  the  source  of  this 
ostensible  intelligence.  So  far,  my  opinion  has  inclined  much 
more  strongly  to  a  "  rationalistic  "  than  toward  a  "  spiritistic  " 
interpretation.  I  don't  think  much  of  that  pair  of  words, 
however :  for  I  don't  see  why  "  spiritualism "  is  inevitably 
not  rational,  though  it  has  not  yet  been  proved  so,  to  my 
satisfaction  at  least.  Yet  fairness  compels  me  to  admit 
that  I  begin  with  a  bias.  For  reasons  that  I  cannot  tell  in 
evidential  detail,  though  I  will  later  give  an  idea  of  their 
general  nature,  I  believe,  as  far  as  I  believe  anything  im- 
perfectly verified,  that  the  soul  survives  the  body;  and  there- 
fore I  must  of  course  consider  telekinetic  phenomena  indicat- 
ing intelligence,  under  the  bias  of  that  belief.  I  can  say, 
however,  that  so  far,  I  do  not  regard  them  as  demonstrating 
the  belief,  or  even  strongly  supporting  it. 

Amid  the  tangled  phenomena  of  telekinetics,  we  have  al- 
ready met  some  hints  of  intelligent  manifestations.  We  will 


Ch.  XI]    Intelligence  shown  through  "  Table-tipping  "     169 

now  proceed  directly  to  them.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  go 
over  much  of  the  ground  we  have  been  over  before,  though 
with  new  crops  on  it 

Intelligent  "  Table-tipping,"  etc. 

First  as  to  some  molar  phenomena :  P *s  music-stand,  it 

will  be  remembered,  tilted  in  answer  to  questions,  and  I 

attributed  it  to  P 's  unconsciously  releasing  the  telekinetic 

force  to  answer  his  own  questions. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  Davis  children.  From  Professor 
Alexander's  account  of  those  interesting  young  persons,  part 
of  which  was  given  on  pages  103  and  147,  I  purposely  with- 
held some  passages,  in  order  that  I  might  present  them  here 
to  illustrate  the  manifestation  of  ostensible  answering  con- 
sciousness. He  says  that  the  table's 

"  sudden  emphatic  movements . . .  often  meant,  according  to  the 
usual  '  yes '  or  '  no '  signals  [Usually  one  rap  for  No  and  three 
for  Yes.  H.H.]  approval  or  disapproval  of  assertions  made  in  the 
conversation. 

It  would  have  been  interesting  to  note  whether  the  table 
represented  the  views  of  the  mediums.  Elsewhere  he  says 
(Pr.  VII,  176) : 

"  On  one  occasion,  a  light  three-footed  table  was  inverted ; 
and  my  hands,  with  those  of  Mr.  Davis,  Mrs.  Davis,  and  the 
two  girls,  were  lightly  placed  on  each  of  the  feet.  Care  was 
taken  to  see  that  no  one  did  more  than  just  touch  the  feet 
of  the  table ;  and,  under  these  conditions,  it  sprang  rapidly  from 
the  floor  into  the  lap  of  one  of  the  sitters,  and  thence  to  the 
floor  again,  repeating  this  manoeuvre  for  each  of  us  in  turn. 
In  the  Thursday  evening  seances  it  was  common  for  the  table 
to  place  itself  in  the  necessary  position  on  our  sitting  down 
to  it,  either  immediately  before  or  after  our  hands  had  been 
placed  on  its  surface." 

Here  the  table  followed  the  natural  inclinations  of  the 
sitters. 
Again  the  same  apparent  effect  (Ibid.,  p.  177) : 

"  A  favorite  dog . . .  was  seated  on  a  chair I  jokingly  chal- 
lenged the  invisible  influence  so  to  move  the  chair  that  the 
dog  might  be  obliged  to  jump  down.  Nothing  happened  for  a 
minute  or  so,  when  the  dog  left  the  chair — apparently  of  its 


170  Molar  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt,  I 

own  accord.  Two  or  three  seconds  elapsed  after  it  had  sprung 
to  the  ground;  and  then  the  chair  tilted  before  us  all.  In  the 
same  way  a  child's  swing,  hanging  in  a  nook  of  the  room,  was 
at  my  desire  subjected  to  a  slight  but  very  visible  oscillation." 

This,  too,  was  all  in  Professor  Alexander's  mind. 

From  Moses's  Researches  in  Spiritualism.  Quoted  in  Pr. 
IX,  260-2 : 

"  Motion  without  contact,  directed  by  evident  intelligence, 
is  seen  markedly  in  the  following  instance: — I  was  calling  on 
a  friend,  and  the  conversation  fell  on  the  phenomena  of  Spirit- 
ualism. A  sitting  was  proposed,  and  nothing,  or  almost  nothing, 
occurred.  We  were  quite  alone  in  the  room,  which  was  well 
lighted.  We  drew  back  from  the  table,  intending  to  give  up 
the  attempt.  My  friend  asked  why  nothing  occurred.  The 
table,  untouched  by  us,  rose  and  gently  touched  my  tHroat  and 
chest  three  times.  I  was  suffering  from  severe  bronchial 
symptoms,  and  was  altogether  below  par.  After  this  no  rap 
or  movement  could  be  elicited,  and  we  were  fain  to  accept  the 
explanation  of  our  want  of  success." 

Moses  was  not  up  to  the  work,  and  himself  knew  that  the 
source  of  his  incapacity  was  in  his  bronchial  tubes.  The  table 
presumably  echoed  him. 

In  Chapter  VIII  it  is  stated  that  small  objects  from  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  house  were  "  generally  thrown  on  the  table  " 
when  Moses  and  some  friends  sat.  The  original  farther 
states  that 

"  such  of  them,  however,  as  would  easily  break,  were  placed 

?uietly,  and  our  attention  was  drawn  to  them  by  a  request 
or  light." 

This  apparently  means  that  the  seance  was,  as  very  usual, 
in  a  partly  darkened  room,  that  the  objects  thrown  on  the 
table  themselves  made  noise  enough  to  attract  attention, 
but  that  when  the  more  breakable  objects  were  brought,  the 
raps  made  the  signal  calling  for  the  alphabet,  and  on  its 
being  given  spelt  out :  "  Light/'  Thus  far  there  is  nothing 
not  easily  accounted  for  by  the  agency  (presumably  invol- 
untary) of  the  mediums.  The  Davis  children,  granted  the 
force  under  their  control,  could  have  unconsciously  made 
the  table  express  their  approval  or  disapproval.  As  one  un- 
consciously nods  or  shakes  one's  head,  so  a  very  simple  de- 


Ch.  XI]     /*  Reflex  from  the  Medium  Sufficient?  171 

sire,  with  hardly  an  intellectual  element,  could  have  brought 
their  light  table  into  the  laps  of  the  sitters  or  in  a  position 
for  the  circle.  Similarly  there  need  not  have  been  more 
than  a  very  simple  reflex  of  their  desire  to  have  Professor 
Alexander's  wishes  carried  out  in  the  table  tilting  after  the 
dog  left  it,  or  the  swaying  of  the  swing  which  he  asked  for. 

So  too  with  sundry  tables  reported  as  keeping  time  to 
music,  or  with  almost  any  response  made  by  the  table 
to  a  question  or  desire  naturally  entertained  by  the  medium. 
But  as  we  pursue  our  way,  it  seems  gradually  to  go  outside 
of  these  possible  reflexes  from  the  medium. 

In  the  account  of  Sir  William  Crookes'  bell  on  page  153 
the  original  says  that  before  the  bell  was  heard,  the  table 
spelt  out :  "  We  are  going  to  bring  something  to  show  our 
power."  Apparently  there  was  no  consciousness  in  the 
medium  of  what  was  coming. 

The  same  is  true  of  Stainton  Moses's  big  stone.  The 
original  account  states  that  its  appearance  was  preceded  by 
a  table  message :  "  We  have  brought  stone.  Wait." 

On  the  face  of  it,  these  communications  have  much  less 
than  the  preceding  ones,  the  appearance  of  being  reflexes 
from  the  medium. 

Tables  have  ascribed  their  motions  to  all  sorts  of  angels 
and  devils  apparently  expressing  the  conceptions  in  the  mind 
of  the  medium  of  the  force. 

Dr.  Salveton's  table  (as  reported  in  the  Annals  of  Psychical 
Science,  January-March,  1910)  said  that  it  was  moved  by 
"a  devil  named  Dormon,"  who  agreed  to  show  himself. 
When  asked  why  he  did  not  come,  the  table  said :  "  Candles." 
They  were  put  out.  Still  he  did  not  appear,  and  the  table 
when  asked  the  reason,  said :  "  Gas,"  referring  to  a  light  in 
the  hall  which  came  in  through  the  transom.  This  was  put 
out.  Regarding  the  rest  of  the  experience,  Salveton  says: 

"  We  were  all  excited  in  the  extreme,  but  the  nervous  state 
of  Barthelemy  G.,  C.,  and  particularly  that  of  Gabriel  D., 

seemed  to  me  to  be  abnormal I ...  put  a  further  preliminary 

question  to  the  table Is  there  any  danger  in  Dormon  coming? 

Yes.    What  danger?    Insanity.     For  all?    No.    For  one  only? 

Yes.    Which  one  ?    D Gabriel  D.,  who  had  been  thus  named, 

was  in  a  highly-strung  condition,  and  cried  out :  'I  don't  care. 


172  Molar  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

No  matter.  We  must  go  on  to  the  end.  I  want  to  see  what  will 
happen.' 

"  I  learned  later  that  Eugene  B.  had  formerly  had  a  lunatic 
in  his  family,  who  was  a  great  '  table-turner,'  and  who  asserted 
that  these  unusual  movements  were  the  work  of  the  devil  Dor- 
mon,  and  that  he  had  often  seen  this  devil,  who  had  the 
appearance  of  a  tall,  beardless  young  man  of  corpse-like  pallor 
and  draped  in  a  shroud." 

This  of  course  points  to  the  involuntary  exercise  on  the 
table  of  human  force,  either  muscular  or  psycho-kinetic. 

"  I  asked  the  table  to  tell  Dormon  "  [the  "  devil "]  "  it  was 
ill-mannered  of  him  not  to  be  willing  to  show  himself  without 
doing  injury  to  one  of  us,  that  well-bred  people  did  not  act 
thus;  that,  in  these  circumstances,  he  had  only  to  remain  where 
he  was,  etc.  Without  allowing  me  to  finish  my  diatribe,  the 
table  said  to  me,  '  M — ! '  as  in  the  story  of  Cambronne  at 
Waterloo,  and,  suddenly,  with  a  noise  comparable  to  that  of 
a  hard  blow  of  a  mallet  on  a  big  drum  of  extraordinary  sono- 
rousness, the  window  was  opened  wide,  the  curtains  not  being 
moved  at  all;  the  heavy  copper  candlestick  and  the  box  of 
matches  placed  on  the  top  of  the  trunk  were  thrown  to  the 
ground,  and  the  wick  of  the  candle  was  half-extinguished  by 

touching  the  floor The  table . . .  began  to  turn,  sometimes  in 

one  direction  and  sometimes  in  another,  at  such  a  rate  that  we 
could  not  follow  it  and  the  top  slipped  from  under  our  fingers. 
Then  it  began  to  dance  a  kind  of  waltz,  and  by  degrees  got 
nearer  to  the  trunk,  in  front  of  which,  on  the  floor,  there  was 
still  the  overturned  box  with  the  matches  scattered  about.  When 
it  reached  the  trunk  the  table  raised  its  feet,  one  after  the 
other,  and  let  them  fall  with  a  rubbing  motion,  twice  in  each 
direction.  After  a  moment  I  noticed  that  each  time  the  feet  of 
the  table  fell  the  head  of  a  match  exploded.  I  called  out  to  my 
comrades  to  press  with  all  their  might  upon  the  table  so  as  to 
stop  its  movement;  despite  the  combined  weight  of  seven  of  us 
leaning  on  the  table,  not  merely  with  the  tips  of  our  fingers, 
but  with  our  open  palms,  we  were  not  able  to  stop  it.  Then, 
calling  out  to  all  of  them  to  let  go,  and  not  to  touch  it,  I  took 
hold  of  the  center  support  of  the  table,  turned  it  over  in  the  air, 
and  put  it  down  with  the  flat  top  downwards  on  the  floor  and 
placed  both  my  feet  on  it  so  that  it  was  unable  to  move. . . .  Only 
the  heads  of  the  matches  trodden  on  by  the  table  had  been  rubbed 
and  bruised,  without  a  single  exception. . . .  None  of  the  matches 
had  been  touched  by  the  feet  of  the  table  anywhere  but  on  the 
head." 

This  is  about  the  only  account  of  "  pure  devilishness " 


Ch.  XI]  Dr.  Salveton's  Talk  173 

that  I  have  met  with.  One  of  the  sitters  was  in  a  highly 
strung  condition,  and  had  just  been  threatened  with  in- 
sanity. 

In  support  of  the  hypothesis  that  the  table  echoes  the 
medium,  Dr.  Salveton  says: 

"I  have  never  observed  any  instance  in  which  a  sensible 
answer  was  obtained  which  was  absolutely  unknown  to  all 
the  experimenters  without  exception.  I  have,  on  the  con- 
trary, only  observed  instances  of  replies  known,  supposed,  or 
foreseen  in  advance,  before  being  formulated  by  the  table,  by 
one  of  the  experimenters,  most  frequently  by  the  director  of 
the  experiment,  sometimes  also  by  another  who  appeared  to 
play  only  a  subordinate  part. 

"  It  was  not  long  before  we  observed : — 

"1.  That  the  sooner  the  table  began  to  tremble  after  the 
chain  of  hands  had  been  formed  around  the  top,  the  more 
successful  was  the  experiment,  and  the  more  easily  and  ac- 
curately the  replies  were  given.  In  other  words,  the  stronger 
and  clearer  the  force,  whether  it  was  the  sitters'  force  moving 
the  table  as  an  echo  to  themselves,  or  was  independent  of 
them. 

"  2.  That  the  replies  through  the  table  were  always  very 
correct  when  they  were  previously  known  to  one  or  other  of 
those  joining  hands  in  the  circle. 

"  3.  That  the  replies  were  always  confused  or  absurd  when 
the  table  was  asked  things  unknown  to  all  present. 

"  We  formed  the  habit  of  leaving  to  the  table  itself  the  choice 
of  the  experimenter  who  was  to  put  the  question,  a  choice 
which  it  signified  by  leaning  towards  him. 

"  Every  time  that  the  choice  fell  upon  me  I  noticed  that 
the  reply  that  the  table  would  make  to  each  question  came 
into  my  mind  before  the  table  gave  the  answer,  and  that 
every  time  that  I  did  not  clearly  foresee  the  reply,  the  table 
either  did  not  answer  or  did  not  do  so  in  an  intelligible 
manner. 

"  On  several  occasions  we  asked  the  table  the  ages  of  some 
persons  present  (unknown  to  the  questioner),  the  number  of 
coins  an  experimenter  had  in  his  purse,  the  number  of  matches 
remaining  in  a  partly  emptied  box, . . .  and,  for  the  most  part, 
[Italics  mine.  H.H.]  the  table  replied  correctly." 

I  suspect  that  the  part  where  the  table  did  not  reply 
correctly  was  where  (as  probably  in  the  case  of  the  matches 
and  the  coins)  nobody  knew  the  fact — that  the  case  was,  in 
one  point,  like  that  of  the  magician  with  my  matchbox  given 
on  page  280. 


174  Molar  Telepsychic  Telekinesis   [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

I  have  yet  to  meet  my  first  case  of  a  superusual  report  of 
a  fact  not  known  to  any  human  intelligence.  Yet  Salveton 
tells  of  the  table,  in  answer  to  an  inquiry  for  an  unknown 
murderer,  spelling  out  the  name,  occupation,  and  address. 
The  name,  occupation,  and  address  were  found  in  the  Paris 
directory,  but  more  than  ten  years  having  elapsed  since  the 
crime,  it  was  too  late  for  any  proceedings.  But  in  this  case, 
a  number  of  persons  knew  the  name,  occupation,  and  address, 
and  if  they  really  were  connected  with  the  murderer,  that 
fact  was  known  to  at  least  the  murderer  himself. 

Yet  despite  all  this,  Dr.  Salveton  says : 

"  A  table  has  spelt  out  facts  not  known  to  any  person  pres- 
ent, but  known  to  others.  Its  replies,  however,  were  reported 
'  always  very  correct  when  they  were  previously  known  to 
one  or  other  of  those  joining  hands  in  the  circle '  and  '  always 
confused  or  absurd  when  the  table  was  asked  things  unknown 
to  all  present.' 

"  I  hold  it  to  be  established,  though  not  fully  demonstrated, 
that  the  motive  force  of  the  table  is  quite  unconnected  with 
any  diabolical  or  supernatural  intervention,  and  that  this 
force  is  connected  with  the  scientifically  studied  phenomena 
of  hypnotism  and  catalepsy;  by  the  formation  of  a  circle  of 
hands  by  the  experimenters,  for  a  longer  or  shorter  period, 
this  force  seems  to  be  discharged  from  their  persons,  just  as 
electricity  is  discharged  from  several  cells  coupled  up  to  form 
a  battery,  and  by  the  application  of  this  force  the  table  can 
be  made  to  execute  movements  dictated  by  the  will  of  all  or 
one  unknown  to  themselves,  or  vaguely  perceived  by  one  of 
them  only,  by  a  sort  of  collective,  but  very  feeble,  hypnotism." 

The  first  cases  I  gave  showed  that  no  "  cells  coupled  "  are 
necessary. 

Here  is  a  more  composite  case  from  Bartlett  (op.  cit., 
p.  117).  It  anticipates  what  will  be  told  later  of  Foster's 
reading  from  folded  slips,  and  getting  visions  of  the  per- 
sonalities to  whom  the  names  belonged. 

From  a  Washington  paper,  name  and  date  not  given.  Mr. 
Bartlett,  though  plainly  sincere,  had  not  a  historian's  care 
in  his  documentation.  He  tells  me  that  every  newspaper 
account  in  his  book  which  was  cut  out  by  him,  is  properly 
attributed  and  dated,  but  that  he  used  some  clippings  which 
were  sent  him  by  others  without  the  desirable  memoranda, 


Ch.  XI]    Foster's  Rocking-Chair.    Barrett's  Amateur      175 

and,  especially  in  the  confusion  of  travel,  marking  those  often 
escaped  him. 

"When  the  folded  slip  was  placed  on  the  table,  three  raps 
indicated  that  the  spirit  corresponding  to  the  name  was  present. 

'  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Foster,  '  it  is  little .  She  is  your 

cousin,  who  loved  you  very  dearly,  and  is  very  glad  you  came 
here.  She  points  to  that  rocking-chair  in  the  corner,  behind 
me,  and  says  she  will  go  and  sit  in  it.  If  she  can,  she  will 
make  it  rock.' 

"  At  this  point  we  of  course  looked  at  the  chair,  but  so 
many  other  '  signs  and  wonders '  crowded  upon  us  that  in  a 
moment  we  had  forgotten  all  about  it,  when  suddenly  the  lad 
looked  up  in  amazement,  and  pointed  to  the  distant  rocking- 
chair,  which  surely  enough  was  rocking  away  vigorously.  When 
the  fact  was  noticed  and  acknowledged,  raps  came  in  all  parts 
of  the  room,  and  the  sofa  jumped  out  of  place  once  more,  as 
if  in  confirmation  of  our  acknowledgment." 

Apparently  the  following  is  a  strong  case  for  the  medium 
being  the  source  of  the  intelligence,  and  not  some  other  mind 
behind  the  manifestations.  In  Pr.  IV,  34,  Professor  Barrett 
gives  an  account  of  a  seance  with  a  lady  (amateur)  in  Dublin, 
which,  although  interesting  for  the  usual  physical  manifesta- 
tions, I  quote  mainly  for  the  sake  of  its  conclusion.  The 
phenomena  began  with  the  usual  raps, 

"  like  the  ticking  of  a  hard  point  on  the  oilcloth  which  covered 

the  floor  of  the  room In  obedience  to  my  request,  the  table 

raised  the  two  legs  nearest  to  me  completely  off  the  ground, 
some  8  or  10  inches,  and  thus  suspended  itself  for  a  few  moments. 
Again  a  similar  act  was  performed  on  the  other  side.  Next 
came  a  very  unexpected  occurrence.  Whilst  absolutely  free 
from  the  contact  of  every  person  the  table  wriggled  itself 
backward  and  forward,  advancing  towards  the  arm-chair  in 
which  I  sat,  and  ultimately  completely  imprisoning  me  in 
my  seat. ...  It  was  followed  by  Mr.  L.  and  Miss  I.,  but  they 

were  at  no  time  touching  it 

"Addressing   the   table,   I   now   asked   if  knocks   could   be 

given  without  the  contact  of  the  hand Three  knocks  quickly 

came.  The  hands  of  both  Mr.  L.  and  Miss  I.  were  now 
held  up,  and  whilst  they  partially  withdrew  from  the  table, 
the  knocks  still  came,  not  so  vigorously,  but  still  there  they 
were.  This  went  on  for  some  minutes,  till  they  ceased  to 
be  heard.  A  refresher  was  then  given  in  the  shape  of  a 
few  moments'  contact  with  the  hands.  Once  more  the  knocks 
returned,  and  continued  some  time  after  the  hands  were 


176  Molar  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pi  I 

removed."  [Various  '  refreshers '  of  the  force  will  be  met  with 
as  we  proceed.  H.  H.] 

"  There  was  always  a  remarkable  intelligence  and  often  a 
jocosity  about  the  sounds,  and  when  a  tune  was  played  on  the 
piano  the  raps  kept  time  to  it.  Suddenly,  only  the  tips  of  our 
fingers  being  on  the  table,  the  heavy  loo  table  at  which  we 
were  sitting  made  a  series  of  very  violent  prancing  movements 
(which  I  could  not  imitate  afterwards  except  by  using  both 
hands  and  all  my  strength) ;  the  blows  were  so  heavy  that  I 
hurriedly  stopped  the  performance,  fearing  for  the  safety  of 
the  gas  chandelier  in  the  room  below. 

"  It  is  true  the  character  of  the  pious  platitudes  spelt  out 
by  the  table  were  just  such  as  the  medium  herself  (a  Methodist) 
would  be  likely  to  concoct." 

Sir  William  Crookes  says  (Researches,  p.  95) : 

"During  a  seance  with  Mr.  Home,  a  small  lath,  which  I 
have  before  mentioned,  moved  across  the  table  to  me,  in  the 
light,  and  delivered  a  message  to  me  by  tapping  my  hand;  I 
repeating  the  alphabet,  and  the  lath  tapping  me  at  the  right 
letters.  The  other  end  of  the  lath  was  resting  on  the  table 
some  distance  from  Mr.  Home's  hands. 

"  The  taps  were  so  sharp  and  clear,  and  the  lath  was  evi- 
dently so  well  under  control  of  the  invisible  power  which  was 
governing  its  movements,  that  I  said,  '  Can  the  intelligence 
governing  the  motion  of  this  lath  change  the  character  of 
the  movements,  and  give  me  a  telegraphic  message  through  the 
Morse  alphabet  by  taps  on  my  hand  ? '  (I  have  every  reason 
to  believe  that  the  Morse  code  was  quite  unknown  to  any  other 
person  present,  and  it  was  only  imperfectly  known  to  me.) 
Immediately  I  said  this,  the  character  of  the  taps  changed, 
and  the  message  was  continued  in  the  way  I  had  requested. 
The  letters  were  given  too  rapidly  for  me  to  do  more  than 
catch  a  word  here  and  there,  and  consequently  I  lost  the 
message;  but  I  heard  sufficient  to  convince  me  that  there 
was  a  good  Morse  operator  at  the  other  end  of  the  line,  wher- 
ever that  might  be." 

I  don't  see  the  impossibility  of  "  the  good  Morse  operator 
at  the  other  end  of  the  line"  being  Sir  William  himself, 
as  were  plainly  Professor  Barrett's  Dublin  Methodist  lady, 
and  hundreds  of  others,  including  the  father  of  the  Davis 
children,  in  a  part  of  Professor  Alexander's  report. 

From  Crookes's  Researches,  p.  94 : 

"A  'good  failure  often  teaches  more  than  the  most  success- 
ful experiment.'  It  took  place  in  the  light,  in  my  own  room, 
with  only  a  few  private  friends  and  Mr.  Home  present.  Sev- 


Ch.  XI]     Pencil  and  Lath.    Influence  Covers  Miles       177 

eral  circumstances . . .  had  shown  that  the  power  that  even- 
ing was  strong.  I  therefore  expressed  a  wish  to  witness  the 
actual  production  of  a  written  message  such  as  I  had  heard 
described  a  short  time  before  by  a  friend.  Immediately  an 
alphabetic  communication  was  made  as  follows: — 'We  will 
try.'  A  pencil  and  some  sheets  of  paper  had  been  lying  on 
the  center  of  the  table;  presently  the  pencil  rose  up  on  its 
point,  and  after  advancing  by  hesitating  jerks  to  the  paper 
fell  down.  It  then  rose  and  again  fell.  A  third  time  it  tried, 
but  with  no  better  result.  After  three  unsuccessful  attempts,  a 
small  wooden  lath,  which  was  lying  near  upon  the  table,  slid 
towards  the  pencil,  and  rose  a  few  inches  from  the  table;  the 
pencil  rose  again,  and  propping  itself  against  the  lath,  the  two 
together  made  an  effort  to  mark  the  paper.  It  fell,  and  then 
a  joint  effort  was  again  made.  After  a  third  trial  the  lath 
gave  it  up  and  moved  back  to  its  place,  the  pencil  lay  as  it 
fell  across  the  paper,  and  an  alphabetic  message  told  us : —  '  We 
have  tried  to  do  as  you  asked,  but  our  power  is  exhausted.' " 

M.  Edmond  Duchatel  narrates  in  The  Annals  of  Psychical 
Science,  January-March,  1910,  that  he  and  a  "  psychometrist " 
seated  at  a  table,  got  it  to  rap  out  a  message  from  a  friend 
three  kilometres  away  whom  he  had  asked  to  concentrate 
his  attention  on  the  topic  at  the  hour  appointed  for  the  sitting, 
and  that  he  got  not  only  the  message,  but  that  he  and  his 
companion  both  got  a  pain  in  the  shoulder  from  which,  un- 
known to  them,  the  absent  friend  was  suffering. 

While  the  two  persons  were  at  the  table,  the  distant  third 
person  went  to  sleep  (an  experience  almost  unknown  to  him 
in  day-time)  and  was  sleepy  for  hours  after  the  seance  closed. 
He  lost  the  pain  in  the  shoulder  when  it  was  conveyed  to 
the  sitters. 

It  seems  as  obvious  as  anything  in  these  foggy  regions 
can  be,  that  the  message  came  to  the  "  psychometrist's  "  sub- 
liminal consciousness  (which  will  be  explained  later,  see 
index)  and  was  echoed  back  to  him  by  the  table. 

The  case  anticipates  also  our  consideration  of  telepathy, 
but  in  the  vast  complexity  of  these  phenomena,  clear  dis- 
entanglement and  sequent  arrangement  are  almost  impossible. 

It  may  be  handy  to  have  a  word  for  telepathic  communica- 
tion with  persons  not  present  with  the  sitter — a  wider  tele- 
pathy. Some  of  my  Grecian  friends  suggest  teloteropathy. 
But  this  is  anticipating. 

Below  are  some  of  the  occurrences  and  "  messages "  re- 


178  Molar  TelepsycMc  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

ported  by  Sir  William  Crookes  to  have  taken  place  in  the 
presence  of  Home.  They  gave  to  the  manifestations  of  molar 
telekinesis  a  "  spiritual "  background.  These  are  so  generally 
associated  that  it  is  not  practicable  to  give  a  considerable  idea 
of  telekinetic  phenomena  without  bringing  in  the  alleged 
spiritual  element.  Most  of  this,  perhaps  all,  exhibited  in 
connection  with  telekinesis,  I  am  inclined,  as  in  my  friend 

P 's  case,  to  attribute  to  the  volition,  often  unconscious, 

of  the  operator. 

(Pr.  VI,  102)  :  "  Answers  were  given  by  raps  and  notes 
on  the  accordion.  The  alphabet  being  called  for  by  five  raps, 
the  following  message  was  spelled  out :  '  It  is  a  glorious  truth. 
It  was  the  solace  of  my  earth-life  and  the  triumph  over  the 
change  called  death.  Robert  Chambers.' " 

(Ib.  107) :  "  Mr.  Home  then  took  the  accordion  in  his  right 
hand  in  the  usual  manner,  and  placing  his  left  on  the  table 
it  was  held  both  by  Miss  Douglas  and  Mrs.  Wm.  Crookes. 
The  light  was  then  put  out,  and  the  following  message  was 
spelt  :— 

"'The  Four  Seasons.  _  Winter  first.'  « Spring— The  Birth 
of  the  Flowers.'  '  Birds  in  Summer.' 

"  The  above  messages  were  given  whilst  the  piece  was  being 
played.  It  would  be  impossible  to  give  any  idea  of  the  beauty 
of  the  music,  or  its  expressive  character.  During  the  part 
typifying  summer,  we  bad  a  beautiful  accompaniment,  the 
chirping  and  singing  of  the  birds  being  heard  along  with  the 
accordion.  During  autumn  "  [Which  the  spirits  seem  to  have 
forgotten  in  the  foregoing  enumeration.]  "  we  had  '  The  Last 
Rose  of  Summer'  played. 

"  Home  said  that  the  spirit  playing  was  a  stranger  to  him. 
It  was  a  high  and  very  powerful  one,  and  was  a  female  who 
had  died  young. 

"Mrs.  Wm.  Crookes  said:  'Is  it  my  cousin  M ?  It  has 

flashed  into  my  mind  that  it  is  she.' 

"  Answer  by  raps :     '  Yes.'  " 

(Ib.  114)  :  "  We  soon  had  the  message : — '  We  find  we  have 
no  more  power.'  The  meeting  then  broke  up." 

On  another  occasion: 

"  Mr.  Home  then  took  it  in  his  hand,  where  it  played,  and 
delivered  the  following  message  by  chords "  [Presumably  at 
the  mention  of  letters  of  the  alphabet.  H.  H.]  "  in  the  usual 
way: 

" '  Our  joy  and  thankfulness  to  have  been  allowed  to  make 
our  presence  manifest.  We  thank  you  for  your  patience  and 
we  thank  God  for  His  love.' " 


Ch.  XI]  TeleUnetic  Shell  Carving?  179 

(Ib.  119) :  "  We  then  saw  the  accordion  expand  and  con- 
tract, and  heard  a  tune  played.  Mrs.  Win.  Crookes  and  Mr. 
Home  saw  a  light  on  the  lower  part  of  the  accordion,  where 
the  keys  were,  and  we  then  heard  and  saw  the  keys  clicked 
and  depressed  one  after  the  other  fairly  and  deliberately,  as 
if  to  show  us  that  the  power  doing  it,  although  invisible  (or 
nearly  so)  to  us,  had  full  control  over  the  instrument." 

The  following  is  probably  the  most  incredible  case  of 
intelligent  molar  telekinesis  on  record.  In  puzzling  over  it, 
one  may  properly  ask:  If  the  telekinetic  power  can  move 
objects  without  contact,  move  them  with  discrimination  and 
force  or  delicacy,  where  is  the  limit  to  what  it  can  do  with 
them?  The  case  suggests  that  the  field  may  be  at  least  as 
broad  as  human  faculty.  According  to  all  we  have  gathered 
before  regarding  the  power,  I,  for  one,  don't  know  whether 
to  believe  in  the  following  alleged  manifestation  or  not. 
Where  is  one  to  draw  the  line  ?  The  account  at  least  indicates 
a  direction  in  which  to  keep  one's  eyes  open,  but  unlike  most 
of  what  I  quote  from  Moses,  it  rests  on  his  unsupported 
testimony. 

From  Stainton  Moses'  memorandum  book  (Pr.  XI,  61-2) : 

"August  27th,  1875 Some  time  since  a  cameo  was  cut 

during  a  seance  at  Douglas  House Last  night  the  experiment 

was  repeated  under  rery  satisfactory  circumstances A  long 

message  was  rapped  out  by  Catharine  [A  frequent  "  control "  of 
Moses.  A  control  is  an  alleged  spirit  producing  phenomena, 
including  communications  of  any  kind,  through  a  medium. 
II.II.  j.  She  said  they  had  brought  a  shell,  and  were  going  to 
cut  a  cameo;  that  I  was  in  trance  'for  the  night,'  and  that  I 
was  to  be  left  alone  till  morning,  and  not  to  be  told  of  what  was 
done.  A  light  was  struck,  and  Dr.  and  Mrs.  S.  saw  a  shell  in  the 

middle  of  the  table.    I  was  in  deep  trance Then  Mentor  came 

and  Imperator.  [Two  other  controls  whom  I  believe  we  have 
met  before,  and  shall  often  meet  later.  H.H.]  After  he  left, 
light  was  called  for,  and  in  the  center  of  the  table  was  a  cameo 
and  a  quantity  of  debris  of  shell.  Noises  had  been  heard  as  of 
picking,  and  I  saw  a  hand.  The  shell  is  more  clearly  cut  than 
the  first,  and  shows  a  head,  laurel-crowned.  It  is  polished  inside, 
and  shows  plain  marks  of  the  graving  tool.  The  seance  lasted 
about  an  hour. 

"  From  Mr.  Moses'  letter  to  Mrs.  Speer  August  1st,  1875 : 
"  Mentor  was  the   cunning    workman    who    fashioned    the 
cameo.    He  is  not  content  with  his  work,  which  he  says  was 
bad,  and  that  he  can  do  much  better.    He  actually  carved  it, 


180  Molar  TelepsycUc  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

he  says.  And  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  it,  seeing  that  I  can 
find  no  limit  to  spirit-power.  If  they  are  allowed  to  work  in 
their  own  way  they  can  do  almost  anything.  It  is  only  when 
we  compel  them  to  work  in  lines  prescribed  by  us  that  they 
find  any  difficulty." 

I  have  deliberately  transposed  the  chronological  order  of 
these  passages,  because  the  one  now  first  opens  the  subject 
better. 

Assuming  the  authenticity  of  the  story,  it  is  not  very  easy 
to  fasten  the  performance  on  Moses's  involuntary  self.  The 
power  that  disintegrated  the  particles  of  shell  presumably 
came  from  him,  an  agent  apparently  being  always  required, 
and  the  most  remarkable  feats  being  performed  while  the 
agent  is  in  trance,  as  Moses  was  on  this  occasion.  But  that 
he  supplied  the  direction  of  the  power — the  artistic  capacity 
— is  not  an  hypothesis  so  easy  to  adopt:  for  I  have  met  no 
other  intimation  that  he  had  any  capacity  in  the  representa- 
tive arts.  The  case  leaves  less  room  for  the  medium  and 
more  for  the  alleged  control,  than  any  other  alleged  tele- 
psychic  telekinesis  I  can  recall. 

And  here  at  last  we  are  face  to  face  with  the  spiritistic 
hypothesis,  and  with  the  only  choice  as  yet  apparent,  between 
accepting  it  or  leaving  the  judgment  in  suspense — an  art 
in  which  apparently  we  shall  have  much  practice  as  we  pro- 
ceed. 

This  astounding  story  is  very  properly  "  the  limit "  of  our 
attention  to  molar  telekinetic  displays  of  intelligence. 


CHAPTER  XII 
MOLECULAR  TELEP8YCHIC  TELEKINESIS 

So  far  as  the  tangled  phenomena  have  permitted  classifica- 
tion, we  have  now  had  illustrations  of  telekinetic  phenomena 
under  the  heads  of  the  unconscious  molar  (Chapters  VIII, 
IX),  the  unconscious  molecular  (Chapter  X),  and  the  con- 
scious molar  (Chapter  XI).  Let  us  proceed  to  the  conscious 
molecular,  though  so  intermixed  are  the  phenomena  and  the 
accounts  of  them  that  I  have  already  partly  anticipated  that 
division,  and  question  my  wisdom  in  having  attempted  any 
division  at  all. 

Intelligent  Sounds 

First,  the  changes  in  furniture,  etc.,  which  produce  "  raps  " 
expressing  intelligence.  To  begin  again  with  the  most  prob- 
able, or  least  improbable,  manifestations — those  through  the 
young  and  innocent 

Professor  Alexander  says  of  the  Davis  children  (Pr.  VII, 
177): 

"  From  the  first  outbreak  of  the  phenomena  raps  were  the 
principal  means  used  for  announcing  the  supposed  spirit  pres- 
ence. They  came  on  the  floor,  on  the  table,  and,  more  rarely, 
on  the  walls,  in  signals  which  from  the  beginning  were  sharply 
individualized  for  each  separate  influence,  the  same  individu- 
ality maintaining  its  characteristics  throughout  the  sittings. 
As  before  stated,  they  varied  in  loudness  from  hardly  per- 
ceptible ticks  up  to  resounding  blows,  such  as  might  be  struck 
by  a  large  wooden  mallet.  In  the  quality  of  some  of  these 
sounds  there  were  also  marked  and  persistent  distinctions. 
. . .  This  individuality  of  the  raps  was  early  forced  upon  our 
notice;  and  we  learnt  to  recognize  them  when  heard." 

(Ib.  179) :  "  The  same  blows  came,  but  with  even  more 
intensity;  and  they  were  finally  requested  by  Mrs.  Davis  from 
another  room  not  to  make  so  much  noise,  as  they  would  wake 
the  children  who  were  sleeping  in  other  parts  of  the  house. 
The  blows  seemed  to  Mr.  Davis  to  shake  the  whole  building. 

" Mr.  Davis  tapped  out  the  alphabet  from  A  to  Z  and 

181 


182  Molecular  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

the  numbers  1  to  0  in  Morse  signals.  At  each  letter  given  the 
same  sound  was  exactly  imitated,  the  raps  coming  again  near 
the  elder  girl  on  the  floor  at  the  other  end  of  the  room.  The 
imitation  was,  indeed,  so  perfect  that  Mr.  Davis  declared  it 
was  his  own  '  sending.' " 

Mr.  Davis  was  an  expert  telegrapher,  and  it  seems  not 
improbable  that  through  sympathies  which  often  accompany 
zoomagnetic  power,  and  which  will  be  dealt  with  later,  it 
really  was,  unconsciously,  his  own  "  sending,"  via  the  chil- 
dren, especially  in  view  of  tha  following  paragraph  (Cf. 
Home's  lath,  in  the  last  chapter)  : 

"  Nevertheless,  no  message  was  given  in  Morse  signals,  the 
reason  affirmed  being  that,  as  the  medium  did  not  know  tele- 
graphy, they  could  not  use  her  for  that  purpose.  Now,  Mr. 
Davis  was  the  only  person  present  who  knew  anything  at  all 
about  Morse  signals. . . .  One  only  mistake  was  made  at  the 
letter  Q,  which  was,  however,  correctly  given  the  second  time. 
All  the  other  letters  were  smartly  reproduced  without  the  slight- 
est hesitation. . . .  Mr.  X.  found,  when  he  tried  alone,  that, 
although  he  knew  telegraphy  well,  he  could  not  kick  out  the 
signals  with  his  feet 

"I  may  say  that,  in  spite  of  the  many  little  proofs  we  had 
obtained  of  the  genuineness  of  our  phenomena,  my  attitude 
and  that  of  Mr.  Davis  towards  each  repetition  of  the  mani- 
festations was  always  one  of  watchful  suspicion.  Protests  were 
often  made  by  the  influences  at  work;  and  it  was  affirmed 
that  we  hindered  their  action  by  our  persistent  doubts." 

This  necessity  for  faith — for  freedom  from  "  doubts  "  of 
course  suggests  necessity  of  a  willingness  to  be  gulled,  and 
was  generally  so  interpreted  in  the  days  when  we  were  even 
more  ignorant  than  we  are  now.  The  topic  will  be  discussed 
more  fully  later. 

Eaps  very  generally  come  in  answer  to  questions.  In  the 
account  (see  in  Chapter  X)  of  Foster's  percussive  lights,  the 
original  said,  in  place  of  the  words  I  first  put  in  brackets: 
"  When  a  question  was  asked,  and  the  answer  was  no,  which 
was  signified  by  one  rap,"  and,  in  the  other  place  "  the  answer 
was  yes,"  and  the  account,  as  I  gave  it,  was  followed  by : 

"  We  asked  the  raps  to  come  as  rapidly  as  possible,  which 
was  done,  dozens  of  them  racing  one  after  another,  with 
scarcely  any  intermission.  Then  we  asked  the  raps  to  come 
deliberately,  then  slow,  which  was  immediately  complied  with. 


Ch.  XII]         Baps  Respond  to  Auditors  Will  183 

That  night's  experience  satisfied  me  forerer  that  there  were 
raps  produced  through  an  agency  which  has  not  yet  been  ex- 
plained satisfactorily." 

The  raps  produced  in  Mr.  Armstrong's  presence  (page  146) 
are  said  in  the  original  account,  to  have  come  on  his  "  ex- 
pressing a  wish,"  and  he  farther  says: 

"  I  could  at  will  cause  these  sounds  to  cease  or  reappear,  one, 
two,  three,  or  any  number  I  demanded,  and,  stranger  still,  I 
could  induce  a  succession  of  knocks  of  various  degrees  of 
intensity  and  so  delivered  as  to  '  knock  out '  with  wonderful 
accuracy  any  tune  I  asked  for.  I  can  now  recall  amongst 
many  such  the  airs  of  '  Not  for  Joe,'  and  '  The  Blue-bells  of 
Scotland,'  as  especially  well  marked." 

Apparently  this  manifestation  of  nerve  force  is  sometimes 
as  involuntary  as  that  in  St.  Vitus's  dance,  as  illustrated  in 
the  following  from  the  Autobiography  of  a  Journalist,  by 
W.  J.  Stillman,  the  well-known  artist  and  author,  who  was 
for  a  long  time  our  Consul  in  Crete  (I,  189-90) : 

"  We  heard  of  a  remarkable  case  in  the  circle  of  our  own 
acquaintance  which  had  been  kept  from  public  knowledge  as 
far  as  possible  by  the  aversion  to  publicity  of  the  father  of 
the  subject,  my  brother's  chief  foreman.  She  was  a  girl  of 
fourteen,  of  a  timid  and  nervous  organization,  who  had  suf- 
fered great  annoyance  by  the  persistence  of  the  rappings  about 
her  wherever  she  might  be;  at  first  in  her  bedroom,  but  finally 
to  her  great  dismay  in  the  class-rooms  of  the  primary  public 
school  of  New  York,  in  which  she  held  the  position  of  assistant 

teacher The  rappings  caused  such  fright  amongst  the  school 

children  that  she  was  menaced  with  dismissal  if  they  did  not 
cease.  She  implored  the  agency  which  was  responsible  for  the 
sounds  to  leave  her  alone  at  school  and  do  what  seemed  best 
to  them  at  home,  and  the  rappings  did  actually  cease  at  school." 

An  apparent  instance  of  the  well-known  reactive  effect 
of  prayer  on  the  organism. 

From  Sir  Wm.  Crookes  (Pr.  VI,  121),  after  an  account 
of  a  seance  with  Home: 

"Raps  then  said:— 'We  must  go.'  The  raps  then  com- 
menced loudly  all  over  the  room  and  got  fainter  and  fainter 
until  they  became  inaudible." 

(Ib.  122):  "Miss  Douglas  said:— 'Dear  spirits,  how 
pleased  you  would  have  been  had  you  lived  to  witness  the 
progress  Spiritualism  is  now  making.'  Immediately  a  mes- 
sage was  given  in  reply : — '  We  are  not  dead ! ' 


184  Molecular  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

"I  felt  touched  strongly  on  the  knee  by  something  feeling 
like  fingers.  On  putting  my  hand  down  a  sheet  of  paper  was 
put  into  it.  I  said:— 'Is  anything  written  on  it?'  'Yes.' 
It  being  too  dark  to  see  what  was  written,  I  asked  that  it  might 
be  told  me  by  raps,  and  on  repeating  the  alphabet  I  got  the 
following: — ' Kctojdourdaniel.'  On  striking  a  light  the  fol- 
lowing was  seen  neatly  written: — <R.  C.  to  J.  D.  Our 
Daniel.' "  [Alluding  to  Home.]  "  Miss  Douglas  said  the  R.  C. 
was  Robert  Chambers,  whilst  J.  D.  were  the  initials  of  her 
own  name." 

In  these  almost  incredible  performances  there  were  none 
of  the  "  cabinets  "  and  other  paraphernalia  used  by  Eusapia 
Palladino  and  many  others,  and  Sir  William  Crookes  ex- 
presses great  confidence  in  Home's  sincerity,  and  in  the  gen- 
uineness of  the  phenomena  manifested  through  him. 

Bartlett  says  (op.  di.,  105)  : 

"I  remember  one  evening  calling  with  Foster  upon  Mrs.  S., 
who  had  recently  moved  into  unfurnished  apartments.  Mrs.  S. 
said . . .  *  Please  give  us  some  physical  manifestations.  My 
parlor  is  just  the  place,  heavy  blankets  being  over  the  windows, 
to  keep  out  the  glare  of  the  sun.  One  small  wooden  table 
is  the  only  furniture.'. . . '  No,'  replied  Mr.  Foster,  describing 
at  the  same  time  how  unpleasant  it  was  for  him  to  sit  in 
the  dark.  Mrs.  S.  persisted,  'Do,  please,  just  this  once.' 
Finally  Mr.  Foster  consented  under  these  conditions:  the 
table  was  to  be  placed  under  the  chandelier,  we  three  should 
take  hold  of  hands  around  the  table,  matches  should  be  placed% 
on  the  table,  Mrs.  S.  agreeing  to  light  the  gas  the  moment  Mr. 
Foster  so  requested.  We  sat  in  silence  a  moment,  when  Mr. 
Foster  said  the  spirit  of  M.,"  [Ada  Isaacs  Menken,  Mr.  Bart- 
lett gives  me  permission  to  state.  H.  H.]  "  whom  we  all  had 
known  in  life,  was  there.  Mr.  Foster  said  that  he  saw  the 
spirit  perfectly,  and  that  she  said  if  we  would  keep  quiet  she 
would  dance,  and  that  the  noise  from  the  heels  of  her  shoes 
on  the  bare  floor  would  give  the  tone  and  the  character  of  the 
dance.  She  did  so.  It  was  a  success.  Within  a  few  moments 
Foster  said,  '  Light  the  gas.'  He  was  dripping  with  perspira- 
tion, which  showed  his  peculiar  nervous  condition  during 
physical  manifestations. . . .  After  a  short  rest,  the  medium  re- 
cuperated, and  we  turned  off  the  gas  the  second  time M. 

immediately  returned  and  finished  the  dance.  Whenever  I 
think  of  that  night,  I  can  distinctly  hear  the  clitter-clatter  of 
the  spirit  dancer's  shoes." 

Of  course  if  Foster  had  good  control  over  raps  and  tick- 
ings, he  could,  voluntarily  or  involuntarily,  give  them  the 


Ch.  XII]  Temperatures,    Moses'  Raps  185 

rhythm  of  a  dance.  His  doing  so  need  not  be  deliberately 
fraudulent:  he  may  have,  as  he  said,  visualized  a  dancer. 
Neither  is  it  proved  (a  negative  is  hard  to  prove)  that  there 
was  not  one. 

Mr.  Bartlett  continues  the  same  account: 

"  Mr.  Foster  then  said  the  spirits  told  him  they  would  cool 
the  room  (it  being  a  hot  summer's  night).  Immediately  waves 
of  wind  rushed  through  the  room,  so  cool  that  it  seemed  as 
though  they  came  direct  from  an  iceberg." 

As  already  intimated,  wind  rushes  and  cooling  of  tempera- 
tures are  frequently  noticed  in  the  accounts  of  these  phenom- 
ena. They  include  some  which  eminent  men  of  science  declare 
they  have  felt  from  a  hole  in  Eusapia  Palladino's  head.  That 
seems  about  the  simplest  of  her  phenomena,  with  the  least 
chance  for  the  cheating  with  which  she  seems  to  like  to  eke 
out  her  real  powers — if  she  has  any — as  I  have  no  doubt  she 
has. 

Here  is  a  far  different  manifestation  from  Stainton  Moses 
(Pr.  IX,  290)  : 

"  The  room,  which  had  been  filled  (especially  round  me) 
with  floating  clouds  of  light,  grew  suddenly  dark,  and  absolute 
stillness  took  the  place  of  the  previous  loud  knockings.  It 
would  have  been  a  strange  scene  for  an  ear-witness.  The  table, 
isolated,  with  no  human  hand  touching  it,  giving  forth  a  series 
of  mysterious  thuds  of  varying  intensity,  some  of  which  might 
have  been  made  by  a  muffled  sledge-hammer,  all  indicating 
intelligence;  an  intelligence  that  showed  itself  by  deliberation, 
or  eagerness,  or  stately  solemnity,  according  to  the  nature  of 
the  communication.  Round  the  table  three  persons  sitting 
with  a  hush  of  expectation,  and  faces  (if  they  could  have  been 
seen)  of  awe-stricken  earnestness;  a  question  put,  and  a  loud 
response,  another,  and  a  series,  as  though  by  a  counsel  cross- 
examining  a  dumb  witness.  The  room  shrouded  in  total  dark- 
ness, except  at  one  end,  where  shifting  masses  of  luminous 
vapor  now  and  again  gathered  into  a  pillar  which  dimly  out- 
lined a  form,  and  again  dispersed  and  flitted  round  the  head 
of  one  of  the  sitters.  No  scene  could  be  imagined  more  calcu- 
lated to  strike  a  novice  with  awe,  none  more  solemn  and 
impressive  for  those  who  participated  in  it.  The  Witch  of 
Endor  was  not  more  surprised  when  her  unholy  incantation 
evoked  the  shade  of  Samuel  than  I  was  when  Imperator,  in 
answer  to  my  solemn  adjuration,  professed  himself  to  be  a 
departed  spirit." 


186  Molecular  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

Here  is  in  detail  some  of  the  conversation  alluded  to 
above : 

"  Question.  Are  these  communications  from  spirits? — An- 
swer. Yes.  Q.  Spirits  of  the  departed? — A.  Yes.  Q.  Are  you 

a  spirit  once  incarnated? — A.  Yes Q.  Is  the  account  given 

of  these   manifestations   by   spirits   true? — A.    I   don't   know. 

Q.    Is    what    you    tell    us    true? — A.    Yes    (emphatically) 

Q.  Did  you  write  that  message  the  other  night? — A.  No. 
Q.  Were  you  there  when  it  was  written? — A.  No.  Q.  You 
did  not  come  because  Dr.  Speer  offended  you? — A.  Yes.  (Dr. 
S.  again  apologized,  and  the  apology  was  received  with  a  series 
of  stately  raps,  suggestive  of  bows.)" 

[A  pretty  strong  indication  of  "the  will  to  believe  "!  H.  H.] 
"  Q.  Then  your  absence  let  in  an  evil  or  lying  spirit  ? — A. 
Yes."  [Again  the  mediaeval  superstition!  It  was  afterward 
denied  by  Moses's  "  spirit,"  see  p.  542  (Newbold  sitting).  H.  H.] 
"Q.  Are  we  liable  to  that?— A.  Yes.  Q.  Then  you  do  leave 
me?— A.  No.  Q.  Not  usually,  you  mean?— A.  Yes.  Q.  Then 
we  must  be  guarded  and  careful  to  sit  with  solemnity,  and 
follow  guidance?— A.  Yes.  Q.  You  are  good?— A.  Yes.  Q.  I 
solemnly  charge  and  adjure  you  in  the  name  of  God  that  you 
tell  the  truth.  Are  you  a  good  spirit,  once  incarnated  in  the 
flesh?— A.  Yes.  (Three  of  the  loudest  knocks  I  ever  heard. 
We  all  involuntarily  drew  in  our  breath,  and  a  feeling  of  awe 
stole  over  us.)" 

We  are  now  getting  into  very  high  society.  This  gentleman 
Imperator  we  will  return  to  again.  But  some  other  matters 
had  better  be  treated  first,  one  of  them  being  Sir  William 
Crookes's  conclusions  regarding  the  significance  of  raps  (Re- 
searches, p.  95) : 

"Whilst  I  have  observed  many  circumstances  which  appear 
to  show  that  the  will  and  intelligence  of  the  medium  have 
much  to  do  with  the  phenomena,  I  have  observed  some  cir- 
cumstances which  seem  conclusively  to  point  to  the  agency  of 
an  outside  intelligence,  not  belonging  to  any  human  being  in 
the  room 

"I  have  been  with  Miss  Fox  when  she  has  been  writing  a 
message  automatically  to  one  person  present,  whilst  a  message 
to  another  person  on  another  subject  was  being  given  alpha- 
betically by  means  of  '  raps,'  and  the  whole  time  she  was 
conversing  freely  with  a  third  person  on  a  subject  totally 
different  from  either." 

As  we  shall  see  later,  Mrs.  Piper  wrote  as  one  person,  and 
at  the  same  time  talked  as  another. 


Ch.  XII]          Mysterious  Sounds  and  Voices  187 

Other  sounds  than  raps  are  alleged  to  have  manifested 
intelligence.  All  sounds  so  manifesting  are,  like  raps,  re- 
peated at  request,  a  definite  number  of  times,  loud  or  faint, 
and  in  different  places;  and  by  a  prearranged  code  of  signals, 
give  messages,  and  answer  questions  with  varying  accuracy. 

Dr.  Speer  says  of  the  musical  sounds  described  on  p.  148 
(Pr.  IX,  281)  : 

" Certain  evidences  of  intelligence  having  been  ap- 
parent in  the  manifestations,  we  ascertained  that  the  sounds 
were  in  truth  evidences  of  the  presence  of  individuals  pur- 
porting to  have  long  since  departed  from  earth-life.  The  intel- 
ligence was  manifested  first  by  answers  to  questions,  which 
were  given  in  the  same  manner  as  the  raps  on  a  table,  one, 
two,  three,  five,  etc.  The  peculiarity  of  the  answers  was  that 
the  tone  of  the  sounds  corresponded  in  a  most  singular  and 
convincing  manner  with  the  nature  of  the  response.  In  other 
words,  the  passions  of  individuals,  as  exemplified  on  earth  by 
tones  of  speech,  were  here  illustrated  by  the  peculiar  type  and 
tone  of  the  musical  sound." 

Under  Sounds  we  may  as  well  include  the  unaccountable 
"  voices  "  of  which  accounts  began  to  appear  in  manuscripts 
long  before  there  was  any  printing.  The  reader  will  prob- 
ably not  care  for  more  than  a  single  veridical  case.  Stillman 
gives  a  good  one  (op.  cit.,  I,  200-1) : 

"I  saw  one  day  a  hunter  who  had  come  into  the  woods 
with  a  motive  in  some  degree  like  mine — impatience  of  the 
restraints  and  burdens  of  civilization,  and  pure  love  of  solitude. 
He  had  become,  not  bestialized,  like  most  of  the  men  I  saw, 
but  animalized — he  had  drifted  back  into  the  condition  of  his 
dog,  with  his  higher  intellect  inert.  He  had  built  himself  a 
cabin  in  the  depth  of  the  woods,  and  there  he  lived  in  the  most 
complete  isolation  from  human  society  he  could  attain 

"  He  seemed  to  have  no  desire  for  companionship,  but  there 
was  nothing  morose  or  misanthropic  in  his  love  of  seclusion. 
. . .  He  had  heard  of  spiritism,  and  his  own  experience  led 
him  to  acceptance  of  its  reality.  In  his  solitary  life,  in  the 
unbroken  silence  which  reigned  around  him,  he  heard  mysteri- 
ous voices,  and  only  the  year  before  he  had  heard  one  say  that 
he  was  wanted  at  home.  He  paid  no  attention  to  it,  thinking 
it  only  an  illusion,  but,  after  an  interval,  it  was  repeated  so 
distinctly  that  he  packed  his  knapsack,  took  his  dog,  and  went 
out  with  the  intention  of  going  home.  On  the  way  he  met  a 
messenger  sent  after  him,  who  told  him  that  his  brother  had 
met  with  an  accident  which  disabled  him  from  all  work,  and 
begged  him  to  come  to  his  assistance.  The  voice  had  come 


188  Molecular  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

to  him  at  the  time  of  the  accident.  As  a  rule,  however,  the 
voices  seemed  vagarious  and  he  attached  no  importance  to 
them,  except  as  phenomena  which  interested  him  slightly." 

Stillman  also  "  heard  voices  "  in  the  silence  of  the  woods, 
as  many  imaginative  people  do,  but  has  not  stated  that  any 
of  them  were  veridical. 

Intelligent  Lights 

As  raps  and  other  sounds  have  communicated  intelligence 
from  somewhere — perhaps  merely  reflecting  it  from  the  me- 
dium, so  have  lights. 

Intelligence  was  manifested  by  Foster's  lights,  on  pages  150 
and  182. 

Sir  William  Crookes  says  (Researches,  p.  91)  : 

"I  have  had  questions  answered  by  the  flashing  of  a  bright 

light   a   desired   number   of   times   in   front   of  my  face 

I  have  had  an  alphabetic  communication  given  by  luminous 
flashes  occurring  before  me  in  the  air,  whilst  my  hand  was 
moving  about  amongst  them.  I  have  seen  a  luminous  cloud 
floating  upwards  to  a  picture.  Under  the  strictest  test  con- 
ditions, I  have  more  than  once  had  a  solid,  self-luminous, 
crystalline  body  placed  in  my  hand  by  a  hand  which  did  not 
belong  to  any  person  in  the  room.  In  the  light  I  have  seen  a 
luminous  cloud  hover  over  a  heliotrope  on  a  side  table,  break 
a  sprig  off,  and  carry  the  sprig  to  a  lady;  and  on  some  occa- 
sions I  have  seen  a  similar  luminous  cloud  visibly  condense 
to  the  form  of  a  hand  and  carry  small  objects  about." 

Here  were  intimations  of  materializations.  Such  are  gen- 
erally associated  with  light. 

Moses  says  (Pr.  IX,  275-6) : 

"  Since  the  commencement  of  the  present  year  we  have  had 
another  kind  of  light  altogether. ...  It  flashes  with  great  rapid- 
ity, and  answers  questions  by  the  usual  code  of  signals.  The 
light  usually  hovers  over  my  head,  sometimes  coming  into  the 
circle,  but  more  frequently  floating  in  a  distant  corner  of  the 
room.  It  is  not  apparently  solid,  nor  does  it  seem  to  be  sur- 
rounded with  drapery." 

Dr.  Speer  says  (Pr.  IX,  297) : 

"  December  31st,  1872 A  column  of  light  about  seven  feet 

high  was  seen  to  move  round  the  room,  and  about  two  feet  to 
the  right  of  the  column  was  a  large  glowing  mass  of  light 


Ch.  XII]  The  Speers  on  Moses  189 

During  the  time  Imperator  was  entrancing  the  medium,  and 
conversing  with  us  through  him,  we  saw  a  large  bright  cross 
of  light  behind  the  medium's  head,  rays  surrounding  it;  after 
this  it  culminated  into  a  beautiful  line  of  light  of  great  bril- 
liancy, reaching  several  feet  high  and  moving  from  side  to  side. 
Behind  this  column  of  light  on  the  floor  was  a  bright  cluster 
of  lights  in  oblong  shape.  These  remained  for  more  than  half- 
an-hour,  and  upon  asking  Imperator  the  meaning  of  the  lights, 
he  said  the  pillar  of  light  was  himself;  the  bright  light  behind 
him  his  attendant;  and  the  numerous  lights  seen  in  the  room 
belonged  to  the  band.  The  light  around  the  medium's  head 
showed  his  great  spiritual  power.  He  also  said  in  time  we  might 
see  him;  might  do  so  now  were  our  spiritual  vision  clearer." 

And  here  we  are  at  last  landed  in  the  jumble  of  sounds, 
lights,  trances,  materializations,  alleged  spiritual  communica- 
tions which,  in  addition  to  molar  telekinetic  phenomena, 
raps,  and  Heaven  knows  what  else,  for  a  dozen  years  or 
more,  seem  to  have  constituted  the  daily  experience  of  Stain- 
ton  Moses  and  those  near  to  him. 

So  far  I  have  tried  to  keep  the  threads  distinct,  but  they 
have  now  become  too  complicated. 

Moses'  phenomena  are  so  well  summed  up  in  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Charlton  Speer  that,  at  the  expense  of  some  repetition, 
I  give  it  virtually  entire  (Pr.  IX,  344-9) : 

"My  Dear  Mr.  Myers, — You  have  asked  for  some  of  my 
personal  recollections  of  seances  with  Mr.  Stainton  Moses,  at 
which  I  was  present. ...  It  is  important  to  note  that  at  these 
seances  no  less  than  ten  different  kinds  of  manifestations  took 
place  with  more  or  less  frequency.  On  occasions  when  we 
had  fewer  varieties  we  were  usually  told  that  the  conditions 
were  not  good.  When  they  were  favorable  the  manifestations 
were  more  numerous,  the  raps  more  distinct,  the  lights  brighter, 
and  the  musical  sounds  clearer.  The  various  occurrences  may 
be  briefly  enumerated  as  follows: — 

"  1.  Great  variety  of  raps,  often  given  simultaneously,  and 
ranging  in  force  from  the  rapping  of  a  finger-nail  to  the  tread 
of  a  foot  sufficiently  heavy  to  shake  the  room. 

"  2.  Raps  which  answered  questions  coherently  and  with  the 
greatest  distinctness;  also  gave  messages,  sometimes  of  con- 
siderable length,  through  the  medium  of  the  alphabet.  At  these 
times  all  the  raps  ceased  except  the  one  identified  with  the 
communicating  spirit,  and  perfect  quiet  prevailed  until  the 
message  was  delivered.  We  could  nearly  always  tell  at  once 
with  which  spirit  we  were  talking,  owing  to  the  perfectly  dis- 
tinct individuality  of  each  different  rap. 


190  '         Molecular  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

"3.  Lights  were  of  two  different  kinds — objective  and  sub- 
jective  Dr.  Speer  and  myself  being  of  entirely  unmedium- 

istic  temperaments,  we  were  only  able  to  see  the  objective 
lights,  but  Mr.  Stainton  Moses,  Mrs.  Speer,  and  other  occa- 
sional sitters  frequently  saw  and  described  those  which  were 
merely  subjective.  Another  curious  point  in  relation  to  the 
objective  lights  was  that,  however  brightly  they  might  shine, 
they  never — unlike  an  ordinary  lamp — threw  any  radiance 
around  them  or  illuminated  the  smallest  portion  of  the  sur- 
rounding darkness — when  it  was  dark — in  the  slightest  degree. 

"4.  Scents  of  various  descriptions  were  always  brought  to 
the  circle — the  most  common  being  musk,  verbena,  new-mown 
hay,  and  one  unfamiliar  odor  which  we  were  told  was  called 
spirit-scent.  Sometimes  breezes  heavy  with  perfume  swept 
round  the  circle,  at  other  times  quantities  of  liquid  musk,  &c., 
would  be  poured  on  the  hands  of  the  sitters  and,  by  request,  on 
our  handkerchiefs.  At  the  close  of  a  seance  scent  was  often 
found  to  be  oozing  out  of  the  medium's  head,  and  the  more  it 
was  wiped  away,  the  stronger  and  more  plentiful  it  became. 

"  5.  The  musical  sounds,  which  were  many  and  of  great 

variety Having  myself  had  a  thorough  musical  education, 

I  was  able  to  estimate,  at  its  true  value,  the  importance  of 
these  particular  manifestations The  musical  sounds  pro- 
duced in  the  room  in  which  there  was  no  instrument, . . . 
were  about  four  in  number.  First,  there  were  what  we  called 
the  '  fairy  bells.'  These  resembled  the  tones  produced  by  strik- 
ing musical  glasses  with  a  small  hammer. ...  It  was  difficult 
to  judge  where  the  sound  of  these  'fairy  bells'  came  from, 
but  I  often  applied  my  ear  to  the  top  of  the  table,  and  the 
music  seemed  to  be  somehow  in  the  wood — not  underneath 
it;  as  on  listening  under  the  table,  the  music  would  appear  to 
be  above.  Next  we  had  quite  a  different  sound — that  of  a 
stringed  instrument  more  nearly  akin  to  a  violoncello  than. 

anything  else It ...  might  perhaps  be  produced  by  placing  a 

'cello  on  the  top  of  a  drum The  third  sound  was  an  exact 

imitation  of  an  ordinary  hand-bell,  which  would  be  rung  sharply 
by  way  of  indicating  the  presence  of  the  particular  spirit  with 
whom  it  was  associated.  We  naturally  took  care  to  ascertain 

that  there  was  no  bell  of  any  kind  in  the  room Lastly,  we 

had  a  sound  that  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  offer  an  adequate 
description  of.  The  best  idea  of  it  I  can  give  is  to  ask  you  to 
imagine  the  soft  tone  of  a  clarionet  gradually  increasing  in 
intensity  until  it  rivaled  the  sound  of  a  trumpet,  then  by  de- 
grees diminishing  to  the  original  subdued  note  of  the  clarionet, 
until  it  eventually  died  away  in  a  long-drawn-out  melancholy 
wail.  This  sound  was  ascribed  to  '  Odorifer.'. . .  Like  the  two 
previous  sounds  I  have  described,  it  was  always  associated  with 
one  spirit. 

"  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  in  no  case  did  the  controlling 


Ch,  XII]          Mr.  Cliarlton  Speer  on  Moses  191 

agencies  produce  more  than  single  notes,  or  at  best  isolated 
passages.  This  they  accounted  for  as  owing  to  the  peculiarly 
unmusical  organization  of  the  medium. . . .  Over  and  over  again 
I  thoroughly  satisfied  myself  that  there  were  no  materials  in  the 
room  which  could  in  any  way  assist  in  making  any  kind  of 
musical  tones,  and  the  clarionet  and  trumpet  sound  was  one 
that  I  should  be  utterly  at  a  loss  to  imitate  in  any  way. 

"  6.  Direct  writing  was  often  given,  sometimes  on  a  sheet 
of  paper  placed  in  the  centre  of  the  table  and  equidistant  from 
all  the  sitters;  at  other  times  one  of  us  would  place  our  hands 
on  a  piece  of  paper  previously  dated  and  initialed,  and  usually 
a  message  was  found  written  upon  it  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
stance.  We  always  placed  a  pencil  upon  the  paper,  but  some- 
times we  only  provided  a  small  piece  of  lead,  the  results  being 
the  same  in  both  cases. 

"  7.  Movements  of  heavy  bodies,  such  as  tables  and  chairs, 

were  by  no  means  infrequent The  dining-table ...  at  which 

we  usually  sat  was  an  extremely  weighty  one,  and  was  made 
from  solid  Honduras  mahogany,  but  at  times  it  was  moved 
with  much  greater  ease  than  the  combined  efforts  of  all  the 
sitters  could  accomplish — and  these  combined  efforts  were  power- 
less to  prevent  its  moving  in  a  certain  direction,  if  the  unseen 
force  willed  it  to  do  so. 

"8.  The  passage  of  matter  through  matter  was  sometimes 
strikingly  demonstrated  by  the  bringing  from  other  rooms  of 
various  articles  through  closed  and  bolted  doors. 

"  9.  The  direct  spirit  voice,  as  opposed  to  the  voice  of  a 
spirit  speaking  through  the  medium  while  in  a  state  of  trance, 
we  very  seldom  heard,  and  never  with  any  clearness  or  dis- 
tinctness. But  occasionally  it  was  attempted,  and  by  listening 
carefully  we  could  distinguish  one  or  two  broken  sentences 
which  were  hissed  out  in  a  sort  of  husky  whisper. 

"  10.  The  inspirational  addresses  given  by  various  spirits 
. . .  though  the  voice  proceeded  from  the  medium  it  was  always 
immediately  apparent  that  the  personality  addressing  us  was 
not  that  of  the  medium.  The  voice  was  different,  and  the 
ideas  were  not  always  in  accordance  with  those  held  at  the 

time  by  the  medium Although  many  spirits  exercised  this 

power  of  control,  the  voice  which  spoke  was  always  different 
— and  in  the  case  of  those  spirits  which  controlled  regularly, 
we  got  to  know  perfectly  well  which  intelligence  was  com- 
municating by  the  tone  of  voice  and  the  method  of  enunciation. 

" Suddenly  the  medium— Mr.  Stainton  Moses,— who 

was  sitting  exactly  opposite  me,  exclaimed,  '  There  is  a  very 
bright  column  of  light  behind  you.'  Soon  afterwards  he  said 
that  the  column  of  light  had  developed  into  a  spirit-form.  I 
asked  him  if  the  face  was  familiar  to  him,  and  he  replied  in 
the  negative,  at  the  same  time  describing  the  head  and  features. 
When  the  seance  was  concluded  I  examined  my  sheet  of  paper, 


192  Molecular  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

which  my  hand  had  never  left,  and  found  written  on  it  a  mes- 
sage and  signature.  The  name  was  that  of  a  distinguished 
musician. ...  I  purposely  refrain  from  specifying  him,  as  the 
use  of  great  names  very  frequently  leads  to  results  quite  differ- 
ent from  those  intended I  asked  Mr.  Stainton  Moses — with- 
out, of  course,  showing  him  the  written  message — whether  he 
thought  he  could  recognize  the  spirit  he  saw  behind  my  chair 
if  he  saw  a  portrait  of  him.  He  said  he  thought  he  could,  so 
I  gave  him  several  albums  containing  likenesses  of  friends,  dead 
and  alive,  and  also  portraits  of  various  celebrities.  I  remained 
in  another  part  of  the  room,  and  did  not  watch  him,  nor  even 
knew  when  he  was  looking  at  the  right  album.  On  coming  to 
the  photograph  of  the  composer  in  question,  he  at  once  said 
without  hesitation,  '  That  is  the  face  of  the  spirit  I  saw  behind 
you.'  Then  for  the  first  time  I  showed  him  the  message  and 
signature. 

(Signed)  "  CHARLTON  T.  SPEER." 

November  5th,  1893. 

"  Ashley  Villa,  Ventnor, 
"October  80th,  1893. 

"I  wish  to  state  that  I  am  a  daughter  of  Mrs.  Stanhope 
Speer,  and  was  present  at  many  of  the  seances  recorded  in 
Light  by  my  mother,  and,  further,  that  the  facts  therein  stated 
are  in  my  recollection,  and  are  true,  and  that  the  phenomena 
actually  took  place.  "  CONSTANCE  ROSALIE  SPEER." 

I  cannot  see  that  it  will  do  any  harm  at  this  late  day,  to 
state  that,  somewhere  that  I  cannot  trace,  I  have  got  the 
suggestion  that  the  portrait  was  of  Mendelssohn. 

There  is  a  circumstance  connected  with  this  letter  worth 
noting.  Paragraph  5  regarding  the  musical  sounds  is  en- 
tirely at  variance  with  what  Moses  himself  wrote  in  his 
note-book  over  nineteen  years  before,  on  September  3  and  4, 
1874  (Pr.  XI,  54)  : 

"  The  musical  sounds  have  reached  seven 

"  1.  Grocyn The  sounds  are  very  pure,  and  express  feeling 

most  wonderfully.  They  are  most  like  a  thick  harp  string. 

"  2.  Chom  makes  the  sound  of  an  old  Egyptian  harp  with 
four  strings.  There  is  little  similarity  to  a  stringed  sound. 

"  3.  Said  makes  a  noise  somewhat  similar  to  Chom's,  but  the 
lyre  has  only  three  strings.  It  is  an  old  Egyptian  instrument, 
and  the  sound  is  like  dropping  water  on  a  steel  plate,  a  sort 
of  liquid  sound,  very  intense.  I  am  told  it  is  very  like  the 
sound  of  a  harmonium  reed. 

"4.  Roophal  makes  a  sound  of  a  seven-stringed  lyre,  yery 
pretty  rippling  sound,  but  the  strings  do  not  seem  to  me  to  be 
arranged  in  harmonial  progression. 


Ch.  XII]  Moses'  Telekinetic  Orchestra  193 

"  5.  Kabbila  makes  a  sound  like  a  drum,  very  deep,  a  sort  of 
prolonged  roll. 

"  6.  makes  a  sound  like  the  ringing  of  fine  porcelain, 

only  that  the  ring  is  very  much  more  pronounced.  This  is  a 
very  intense  sound. 

"  7.  The  Welsh  Harper  makes  a  sound  as  of  the  highest 
strings  of  a  harp,  sharp  and  ringing. 

"  In  addition  there  is  a  sound  of  a  tambourine  and  a  sort 
of  flapping  sound  like  large  wings.  These  can  scarcely  be 
called  musical  in  any  sense,  though  they  are  but  exaggerations 
of  others  in  some  way.  The  modus  operandi  is  similar." 

These  names  were  spelled  out  to  Moses  or  his  companions, 
the  notes  answering  at  significant  letters  when  the  alphabet 
was  repeated.  And  what  a  lovely  lot  of  names  they  are  1  If 
Koophal  had  only  been  accompanied  by  Damphool,  they  would 
have  been  perfect,  and  what  an  orchestra  to  accompany 
Imperator  and  his  entourage! 

But  in  face  of  the  claim  generally  made  by  "spirits,"  as 
will  be  more  particularly  indicated  later,  that  they  begin 
receding  from  the  possibilities  of  earthly  communication  im- 
mediately after  death,  and  are  out  of  its  reach  altogether 
in  a  period  somewhere  stated  at  about  six  years,  why  should 
the  vast  majority  of  the  gentlemen  above  named  proceed 
from  regions  so  remote  in  space  and  time — back  to  the  very 
infancy  of  music,  when  Europe  has  been  supplying  any 
number  of  potentially  musical  ghosts  during  the  last  cen- 
tury when  the  art  has  been  at  its  best? 

There  is  not  a  single  point  of  resemblance  between  the 
accounts,  unless  Moses'  "ringing  of  fine  porcelain"  (Why 
"fine"?)  has  some  resemblance  to  Speer's  bells.  Dr.  Speer 
was  a  musician  and  Moses  was  not.  Did  they  sound  so 
amazingly  different  to  the  two  men?  Did  Speer  never  hear, 
or  in  the  nineteen  years  did  he  forget,  the  sounds  Moses 
reported;  or  did  Moses  never  hear  those  Speer  reported,  or 
did  they  come  later  in  Moses'  career,  or  did  Moses  imagine 
the  whole  thing,  including  his  beautiful  names?  He  does 
not  speak  of  them  as  a  single  experience,  but  they  "have 
reached  seven."  Yet  despite  all  this  mix-up,  there  seems  no 
room  to  doubt — there  are  too  many  other  witnesses — that 
there  were  a  variety  of  frequent  superusual  sounds,  with  in- 
dications of  intelligence  behind  them.  Yet  I  confess  myself 


194:  Molecular  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  1 

more  nonplussed  about  the  whole  Moses  matter  than  about 
even  Home's  fire  performances:  the  testimony  is  so  much 
better  and  fuller  regarding  the  latter. 

Eegaj-ding  the  Moses  phenomena,  the  Council  of  the 
S.  P.  E.  expressed  itself  as  follows  (Pr.  IX,  353)  : 

"  On  the  question  whether  the  improbability  of  deception  is 
greater  or  less  than  the  improbability  that  the  events  actually 
occurred  as  recorded,  the  members  of  the  Council  individually 
entertain  diverse  views,  and  they  do  not  feel  called  upon  to 
express  any  opinion  collectively. 

"If  the  human  powers  we  are  familiar  with  can  produce 
such  phenomena  as  those  that  took  place  in  the  presence  of 
Moses,  the  methods  certainly  open  new  and  important  fields 
of  investigation,  even  if  less  new  and  less  important  than 
would  be  opened  by  new  powers." 

As  I  have  said  more  than  once,  the  time  for  the  fraud 
hypothesis  in  any  respectably  vouched-for  phenomena,  is 
past.  To  my  mind  the  strongest  argument  in  favor  of  the 
honesty  of  the  experiences — whether  they  were  objective,  or 
co-operative  hypnotic  dreams,  is  in  the  portraits  of  Moses 
(after  death)  and  of  the  three  Speers — Doctor,  Mrs.,  and 
Mr.  Charlton,  their  son,  given  in  Pr.  IX.  I  was  tempted 
to  reproduce  them  here  for  that  argument's  sake,  but  they 
by  themselves  would  be  out  of  proportion  with  the  rest  of 
the  book.  Moses'  face,  taken  after  death,  gives  an  impression 
of  strength  and  dignity  which  renders  such  weaknesses  as 
fraud  absurd.  The  eyes  being  closed,  impressions  of  sin- 
cerity do  not  directly  enter  into  the  conditions;  but  if  ever 
any  three  portraits  meant  honesty,  those  of  the  Speers  do, 
and,  in  the  portraits  of  the  elders  especially,  very  much  in- 
telligence and  everything  that  goes  to  make  up  goodness  are 
liberally  manifested. 

Often,  as  my  mind  dwells  upon  it,  I  come  up  to  the  im- 
pression that  Moses  imagined  it  all,  as  I  think  he  imagined 
the  Imperator  group  and  his  various  musicians  (though  not 
the  noises),  and  then  I  am  brought  up  standing  by  the  tes- 
timony of  these  good  people,  and  so  the  only  hypotheses  open 
to  my  mind  regarding  Moses,  and  Home  too,  are  three : 

I.  That  many  wise  and  good  people  lied,  and  lied  con- 


Ch.  XII]  Hypotheses  regarding  Moses  195 

currently;  and  that  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Speer  encouraged  their 
son  to  lie.  This  I  reject.  It  is  less  probable  than  even 

II.  That  there  were  numerous  illusions — dreams,  what  you 
please,  possibly  under  the  influence  of  hypnotism,  so  far 
identical  with  from  a  couple  to  half  a  dozen  of  these  people, 
and  at  many  times,  that  wherever  several  of  the  people  give 
accounts  of  any  one  experience  there  is  no  material  difference 
except  in  the  nineteen-year-interval  testimony  over  phenomena 
so  uncertain  as  the  quality  of  musical  tones.    This  hypothesis, 
while  I  consider  it  more  probable  than  the  first,  I  consider 
less  probable  than 

III.  That  the  events  actually  occurred  in  the  normal  ex- 
perience of  the  witnesses,  though  possibly  the  meaning  of 
"normal"  needs  some  sort  of  widening  of  which  we  have 
not  yet  any  clear  inkling. 

Now  all  I  have  said  is  that  those  three  hypotheses  are  all 
that  are  open  to  my  mind.  Perhaps  that  is  not  strictly  cor- 
rect :  for  in  any  doubtful  case,  no  matter  how  many  hypothe- 
ses in  the  usual  sense  are  "  open,"  there  is  always  the  chance 
that  the  correct  one  still  lurks  hidden  behind. 

I  have  said  that  I  think  III  the  most  likely  one  open.  That 
is  not  saying  that  I  accept  it.  Regarding  the  telekinesis  of 

P and  the  psychoses  of  Foster,  and  of  Mrs.  Piper  as 

will  be  shown  later,  to  a  certain  extent  I  know,  and  anything 
farther  not  inconsistent  with  what  I  know,  I  am  inclined 
to  believe.  Regarding  Home  and  Moses  and  the  other 
mediums,  I  directly  know  nothing,  and  my  readiness  to 
believe  of  course  depends  upon  the  concurrence  of  the  testi- 
mony with  that  regarding  mediums  I  do  know.  Regarding 
those  I  have  not  met,  this  gives  me,  so  far,  basis  for  little  more 
than  a  suspended  judgment,  always  qualified,  however,  by 
the  fact  that  I  know  so  many  things  not  yet  correlated  with 
what  everybody  knows,  and  I  recognize  so  fully  that  the 
field  of  possible  knowledge  is  so  immense  beside  the  field 
of  yet-recognized  knowledge,  that  I  am  more  ready  than 
most  people  to  accept  alleged  new  phenomena  as  actually 
from  the  field  of  possible  knowledge. 

The  intelligence  conveyed  by  the  raps,  sounds,  and  lights 
which  we  have  so  far  dealt  with — by  merely  telekinetic 
means  irrespective  of  impersonation  or  other  utterance,  vol- 


196  Molecular  Telepsychic  Telekinesis    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  I 

untary  or  in  trance,  through  the  organism  of  a  medium,  does 
not  seem  to  have  amounted  to  much  with  anybody  but  Stain- 
ton  Moses,  and  the  answer  to  the  question  whether  it  did 
with  him  will  be  largely  a  matter  of  personal  predilection. 
He  thought  it  amounted  to  a  great  deal. 

We  shall  meet  more  about  it  later. 

The  methodistical  inspirations  of  Professor  Barrett's  friend, 
even  the  pious  expressions  through  Home,  and  some  through 
Moses,  do  not  seem  to  tend  much  to  edification,  at  least  my 
edification ;  in  fact,  almost  all  that  has  been  received  through 
raps  and  lights  relates  to  the  mere  business  of  the  manifes- 
tations, and  despite  an  occasional  bit  of  apparent  independ- 
ence, like  the  "  We  are  not  dead  "  on  page  183,  there  is  very 
little  difficulty  in  making  it  out  an  echo  of  the  medium — 
if  one  is  disposed  to. 

Whatever  the  messages  (?)  through  telekinetic  phenomena, 
they  are  so  much  surpassed  by  those  through  telepathy  and 
"  possession,"  that  it  seems  hardly  worth  while  to  linger 
over  the  telekinetic  ones. 

But  before  leaving  this  region  of  lights  and  sounds  and 
phantasmagoric  effects,  presumably  the  reader  who  has  so 
far  followed  "this  strange  eventful  history"  may  care  to 
know  in  a  word  how,  after  all,  it  impresses  me.  The  raps 
and  apparently  the  electric  manifestations  attending  them  and 
some  molar  telekinetic  phenomena  are  so  closely  allied  with 
plain  telekinesis  and  the  probable  involuntary  agency  of  the 
medium,  that  I  believe  in  their  genuineness.  But  the  rest 
impresses  me  like  a  dream — as  if  half  a  dozen  people,  more  or 
less,  had  occasionally  dreamed  the  same  things.  This  impres- 
sion may  hardly  seem  worth  putting  down  again,  with  the 
conspicuousness  of  a  chapter  ending,  as  a  final  impression; 
but  perhaps  as  we  go  on,  it  may  prove  to  be. 


BOOK  II  — PART  II 
AUTOKINESIS 
CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  manifestations  we  have  already  seen  of  the  modes  of 
force  grouped,  perhaps  too  freely,  under  the  name  Telekinesis, 
have  all  been  from  the  human  body  upon  objects  external 
to  it.  Not  only  the  molar  movement,  but  the  mysterious 
changes  of  temperature,  the  sounds,  lights,  alleged  materiali- 
zations, the  alleged  passing  of  matter  through  matter,  have 
taken  place  only  when  a  "  medium  "  was  present,  and  appar- 
ently in  consequence  of  an  energy  manifested  through  him. 

We  now  approach  a  series  of  new  phenomena  even  less  cor- 
related with  established  knowledge,  which  are  alleged  to  take 
place  in  the  body  itself. 

As  usual,  we  approach  the  group  through  a  phenomenon 
that  might  almost  equally  well  be  included  in  the  group 
we  are  leaving.  I  refer  to  the  alleged  levitation  of  the 
human  body  by  a  force  which  apparently  is  generated  in  the 
body  itself.  I  at  first  grouped  this  phenomenon  with  those  of 
molar  telekinesis,  but  as  the  object  acted  upon  is  not  external 
to  the  body,  I  finally  decided  to  place  it  with  the  new  group, 
along  with  the  resistance  of  the  body  to  heat,  and  the  pro- 
duction of  stigmata  and  blisters  under  the  influence  of  sug- 
gestion. The  healing  power  of  suggestion  might  probably  be 
justly  included  also. 

The  evidence  for  some  of  the  alleged  resistance  to  heat,  and 
for  the  stigmata  and  blisters  seems  conclusive;  that  for  levi- 
tation is  not  as  strong,  but  certainly  is  too  strong  to  be 
ignored. 

This  new  group  has  not  yet,  so  far  as  I  know,  been  even  pro- 
197 


198  Autolcinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  II 

vided  with  a  name,  in  fact  I  don't  know  that  the  phenomena 
have  yet  been  grouped  at  all,  and  do  not  feel  sure  that  I  am 
warranted  in  grouping  them.  Of  course  I  do  so  tentatively. 
For  that  matter  all  classification  is  tentative,  and  with  the 
process  of  knowledge  is  pretty  sure  to  be  upset,  and  names 
to  go  with  it. 

As  we  must  have  a  Greek  name  to  command  any  respect, 
perhaps  autokinesis  will  serve  for  the  moment,  and  last  at  least 
as  long  as  the  book  will.  But  I  sometimes  wish  we  could  string 
out  names  from  our  own  roots,  as  do  the  good  Germans,  even  if 
we  seemed  to  model  them  as  they  appear  to,  on  their  dachs- 
hunds. 

Levitation 

When  I  first  read  of  levitation,  in  Home's  case,  I  was 
tempted  to  give  up  farther  attention  to  him  and  all  his  ways : 
it  was  too  much  like  a  man  lifting  himself  by  his  bootstraps. 
A  bird  rises  as  a  man  walks,  by  transmuting  molecular  force 
into  mechanical  force  moving  a  mechanical  apparatus  against 
a  resisting  medium.  The  same  is  true  of  perhaps  all  use 
made  by  men  of  known  molecular  forces  except  magnetism, 
and  even  the  magnet  could  not  lift  itself  without  the  aid  of 
a  "  keeper  "  placed  above  it.  But  there  does  not  seem  to  be 
any  theoretical  impossibility  of  the  generation,  perhaps  from 
gravity  itself,  of  a  force  counter  to  gravity,  somewhat  as 
negative  magnetism  is  counter  to  positive.  And  this  sentence 
is  hardly  written  before  along  comes  Mr.  Farrows'  alleged 
discovery  that  (so  far  as  I  can  understand  it,  from  the  only 
account  I  have  been  able  to  see),  he  can  directly  concentrate 
the  Hertzian  waves  upon  a  body  with  the  result  of  counteract- 
ing the  effect  of  gravitation.  If  then,  the  waves  of  zoomagnet- 
ism  are  convertible  into  Hertzian  waves,  "  there  you  are !  " 

I  want  to  caution  the  reader  who  may  be  skeptical  regard- 
ing any  one  class  of  these  phenomena,  against  applying  here, 
on  the  very  far  borderland  of  knowledge,  the  doctrine  "  falsus 
in  uno  falsus  in  omnibus"  with  the  same  confidence  that 
he  would  apply  it  in  familiar  fields.  People  who  get  in  the 
way  of  seeing  and  recording  strange  things  are  very  apt, 
without  any  bad  intentions,  gradually  to  get  into  the  way 
of  seeing  and  recording  too  many.  Their  doing  so,  however, 


Ch.  XIII]  Levitation,  Moses  199 

does  not  invalidate  the  genuine  ones  they  gather  in  with 
the  rest;  but  it  does  throw  upon  the  reader  the  difficult  task 
of  discriminating,  and  in  many  situations,  of  keeping  his 
mind  shut  and  at  the  same  time  quite  ready  to  open. 

But  the  evidence  for  levitation  is  at  least  worth  reading, 
especially  as  it  does  not  all  relate  to  but  one  person.  Yet 
there  are  probably  not  over  half  a  dozen  of  whom  it  has  been 
alleged  in  modern  times.  I  can  find  space  for  only  our  old 
friends. 

Stainton  Moses  says  (Pr.  IX,  260) : 

"  My  first  personal  experience  of  levitation  was  about  five 
months  after  my  introduction  to  Spiritualism.  Physical  phe- 
nomena of  a  very  powerful  description  had  been  developed 

with  great  rapidity One  day  (August  30th,  1872)  ...  I  felt 

my  chair  drawn  back  from  the  table  and  turned  into  the  corner 
near  which  I  sat.  It  was  so  placed  that  my  face  was  turned 
away  from  the  circle  to  the  angle  made  by  the  two  walls.  In 
this  position  the  chair  was  raised  from  the  floor  to  a  distance 
of,  I  should  judge,  twelve  or  fourteen  inches.  My  feet  touched 
the  top  of  the  skirting-board,  which  would  be  about  twelve 
inches  in  height.  The  chair  remained  suspended  for  a  few 
moments." 

So  far  this  is  only  the  ordinary  levitation  of  furniture — 
the  chair,  which  could  have  been  done  by  ordinary  telekinesis, 
with  Moses  on  top  of  it;  but  he  continues: 

"  And  I  then  felt  myself  going  from  it,  higher  and  higher, 

with  a  very  slow  and  easy  movement 1  remember  a  slight 

difficulty  in  breathing,  and  a  sensation  of  fullness  in  the  chest, 
with  a  general  feeling  of  being  lighter  than  the  atmosphere. 
I  was  lowered  down  quite  gently,  and  placed  in  the  chair,  which 

had  settled  in  its  old  position 

"  This  experiment  was  more  or  less  successfully  repeated 
on  nine  other  occasions.  On  the  2d  September,  1872,  I  see 
from  my  records  that  I  was  three  times  raised  on  to  the  table, 
and  twice  levitated  in  the  corner  of  the  room.  The  first  move- 
ment on  to  the  table  was  very  sudden — a  sort  of  instantaneous 
jerk.  I  was  conscious  of  nothing  until  I  found  myself  on  the 

table — my   chair  being  unmoved In  the  second  attempt  I 

was  placed  on  the  table  in  a  standing  posture.  In  this  case  I 
was  conscious  of  the  withdrawal  of  my  chair  and  of  being  raised 
to  the  level  of  the  table,  and  then  of  being  impelled  forward  so 

as  to  stand  upon  it In  the  third  case  I  was  thrown  on  to  the 

table,  and  from  that  position  on  to  an  adjacent  sofa.    The  move- 


200  Autokinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  II 

ment  was  instantaneous,  as  in  the  first  recorded  case;  and 
though  I  was  thrown  to  a  considerable  distance  and  with  con- 
siderable force,  I  was  in  no  way  hurt 

"  These  phenomena  of  levitation  have  presented  themselves 

on    a   few    other    occasions 1    have    discouraged    them    as 

much  as  possible,  from  a  dislike  to  violent  physical  manifesta- 
tions. I  have  little  power  to  prevent  a  special  kind  of  mani- 
festation, and  none  whatever  to  evoke  any  that  I  may  desire; 
but  I  do,  as  far  as  I  can,  prevent  the  very  uncomfortable 
phenomena  which  at  this  period  were  so  strongly  developed." 

On  December  3rd,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Speer  both  sign  a  note 
(Pr.  IX,  289) : 

"Mr.  M.  was  moved  about  and  floated  twice." 

We  can  conceive  a  force  in  the  body  counteracting  gravita- 
tion, but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  see  how  a  force  impelling  the 
body — as  the  rush  of  heat  drives  the  rocket,  should  pervade 
the  chair  or  table  too.  Assuming  the  phenomena  to  be  gen- 
uine, is  it  the  same  force  impelling  both,  or  is  there  one 
force  raising  the  body  and  another  making  the  chair  or  table 
stick  to  it?  In  the  fog  of  our  present  knowledge,  all  guesses 
appear  absurd. 

Sir  William  Crookes  says  (op.  cit.,  p.  89)  : 

"  This  levitation  of  human  beings  has  occurred  in  my  pres- 
ence on  four  occasions  in  darkness.  The  test  conditions  under 
which  they  took  place  were  quite  satisfactory,  so  far  as  the 
judgment  was  concerned;  but  ocular  demonstration  of  such 
a  fact  is  so  necessary  to  disturb  our  pre-fonned  opinions  as 
to  '  the  naturally  possible  and  impossible,'  that  I  will  here  only 
mention  cases  in  which  the  deductions  of  reason  were  confirmed 
by  the  sense  of  sight. 

"  On  one  occasion  I  witnessed  a  chair,  with  a  lady  sitting 
on  it,  rise  several  inches  from  the  ground.  On  another  occa- 
sion, to  avoid  the  suspicion  of  this  being  in  some  way  performed 
by  herself,  the  lady  knelt  on  the  chair  in  such  a  manner  that 
its  four  feet  were  visible  to  us.  It  then  rose  about  three  inches, 
remained  suspended  for  about  ten  seconds,  and  then  slowly 
descended.  At  another  time  two  children,  on  separate  occasions, 
rose  from  the  floor  with  their  chairs,  in  full  daylight,  under 
(to  me)  most  satisfactory  conditions:  for  I  was  kneeling  and 
keeping  close  watch  upon  the  feet  of  the  chair,  and  observing 
that  no  one  might  touch  them." 

Sir  William  does  not  tell  us  who  were  the  agents  in  these 


Ch.  XIII]  Levitation,  Home  201 

cases.  If  the  persons  themselves  were  not,  the  cases,  like  the 
beginning  of  Moses'  case  on  page  101,  were  hardly  levitations 
of  human  beings  at  all,  in  the  usual  sense,  but  merely  of 
chairs  on  which  human  beings  were  sitting.  But  there  is  a 
staggering  number  of  vastly  more  improbable  cases  where 
persons  are  alleged  to  have  levitated  themselves.  Sir  William 
continues : 

"  The  most  striking  cases  of  levitation  which  I  have  wit- 
nessed have  been  with  Mr.  Home.  On  three  separate  occasions 
have  I  seen  him  raised  completely  from  the  floor  of  the  room. 
Once  sitting  in  an  easy-chair,  once  kneeling  on  his  chair," 
[These  two  cases  are  like  the  preceding  two — levitations  of 
furniture.  H.  H.]  "  and  once  standing  up.  On  each  occasion 
I  had  full  opportunity  of  watching  the  occurrence  as  it  was 
taking  place. 

"  There  are  at  least  a  hundred  recorded  instances  of  Mr. 
Home's  rising  from  the  ground,  in  the  presence  of  as  many 
separate  persons,  and  I  have  heard  from  the  lips  of  the  three 
witnesses  to  the  most  striking  occurrence  of  this  kind — the 
Earl  of  Dunraven,  Lord  Lindsay,  and  Captain  C.  Wynne — 
their  own  most  minute  accounts  of  what  took  place.  To  reject 
the  recorded  evidence  on  this  subject  is  to  reject  all  human 
testimony  whatever;  for  no  fact  in  sacred  or  profane  history 
is  supported  by  a  stronger  array  of  proofs." 

In  Pr.  VI,  126,  Sir  William  says  of  Home : 

"  He  asked  Mrs.  Wm.  Crookes  to  remove  the  chair  from  under 
him,  as  it  was  not  supporting  him.  He  was  then  seen  to  be 
sitting  in  the  air,  supported  by  nothing  visible. 

(P.  119)  "  Mr.  Home  then  walked  to  the  open  space  in  the  room 
between  Mrs.  I.'s  chair  and  the  sideboard  and  stood  there  quite 
upright  and  quiet.  He  then  said :  '  I  'm  rising,  I  'm  rising,' 
when  we  all  saw  him  rise  from  the  ground  slowly  to  a  height 
of  about  six  inches,  remain  there  for  about  ten  seconds,  and 
then  slowly  descend.  From  my  position  I  could  not  see  his 
feet,  but  I  distinctly  saw  his  head,  projected  against  the  oppo- 
site wall,  rise  up,  and  Mr.  Wm.  Crookes,  who  was  sitting  near 
where  Mr.  Home  was,  said  that  his  feet  were  in  the  air.  There 
was  no  stool  or  other  thing  near  which  could  have  aided  him. 
Moreover,  the  movement  was  a  smooth,  continuous  glide  up- 
wards  " 

Sir  William  Crookes'  notes  (in  Pr.  VI)  also  give  other 
illustrations  of  levitation,  both  of  the  human  body  and  in- 
animate objects.  There  is  also  the  oft-quoted  account  of 
Home's  being  floated  out-of-doors  through  one  window  and 


202  Autokinesis  [Bk.  II,  Ft.  II 

back  through  another.  Various  hypotheses,  none  of  them 
satisfactory,  have  been  proposed  to  account  for  these  phenom- 
ena on  the  theory  of  deception. 

Here  is  a  case  regarding  Foster  which  was  reported  before 
the  storm  of  modern  criticism.  It  is  from  Ashburner,  quoted 
by  Bartlett  (op.  tit.,  p.  110)  : 

"  In  my  dunker-Kammer,  a  room  the  Baron  von  Reichenbach 

had  taught   me  how  to  darken  properly  for  experiments 

Suddenly  a  great  alarm  seized  Mr.  Foster;  he  grasped  my  right 
hand,  and  beseeched  me  not  to  quit  my  hold  of  him,  for  he 
said  there  was  no  knowledge  where  the  spirits  might  convey 
him.  I  held  his  hand,  and  he  was  floated  in  the  air  towards 
the  ceiling.  At  one  time,  Mrs.  W.  C.  felt  a  substance  on  her 
head,  and,  putting  up  her  hands,  discovered  a  pair  of  boots 
above  her  head." 

Resistance  to  Heat 

The  following  cases  seem  to  illustrate  a  mode  of  force 
counteracting  the  effects  of  heat.  They  would  probably  not 
seem  worth  quoting,  to  a  reader  in  whose  belief  telekinesis  was 
not  firmly  established.  But  that  being  granted,  this  form  of 
autokinesis  no  longer  seems  impossible,  though  don't  ask  me 
if  I  believe  in  it :  for  I  should  answer :  I  don't  know. 

Several  travelers  give  mutually  confirmatory  accounts  of  the 
Fire-walk  in  Japan  and  Fiji. 

Mrs.  Joseph  Lindon  Smith  (wife  of  the  well-known  Boston 
artist,  and  daughter  of  the  well-known  New  York  publisher 
Mr.  George  Haven  Putnam)  gives  me  permission  to  state  that 
she  successfully  went  through  it  in  Japan.  How  to  account 
for  what  my  friend  tells  me,  I  don't  know.  The  late  Andrew 
Lang  had  an  interesting  paper  on  the  subject  in  Pr.  XV,  2-15 
from  which  the  following  extracts  are  made: 

"  Science  is  acquainted  with  no  substance — alum  or  diluted 
sulphuric  acid,  or  the  like — which  will  produce  the  result  of 
preventing  cauterization."  [This  is  contradicted  below  by  Mr. 
Lang  himself,  at  least  as  concerns  sensation.  H.  H.]  "  Sir 
William  Crookes,  at  least,  is  not  familiar  with  any  such 
resources  of  science.  His  evidence  as  to  fire-handling  by  D. 
D.  Home  is  familiar,  and  I  understand  that  Mr.  Podmore  can 
only  explain  it  away  by  a  hypothesis  of  a  trick  played  in  a 
bad  light,  by  means  of  an  asbestos  glove  or  some  such  trans- 


Ch.  XIII]    Resistance  to  Heat.    Fire-Walking  in  Fiji    203 

parent  dodge  (Studies  in  Psychical  Research,  pp.  58-59).  Per- 
haps be  adds  a  little  '  hallucination '  on  the  part  of  the 
spectators.  But  asbestos  and  hallucination  are  out  of  the 
question  in  the  cases  which  I  am  about  to  quote.  Home  was, 
or  feigned  to  be,  in  a  state  of  trance  when  he  performed  with 
fire.  The  seeress  of  Lourdes,  Bernadette,  was  also  in  religious 
contemplation  when  she  permitted  the  flame  of  a  candle  to 
play  through  her  clasped  fingers  (which  were  unscathed)  for 
a  timed  quarter  of  an  hour.  Some  Indian  devotees,  again,  aver 
that  they  '  meditate '  on  some  divine  being  while  passing  over 
the  glowing  embers,  and  the  Nistinares  of  Bulgaria,  who  dance 
in  the  fire,  are  described  as  being  in  a  more  or  less  abnormal 
mental  condition.  But  even  this  condition  is  absent  in  the 
well-attested  Raiatean  and  Fijian  examples,"  [Not  to  speak 
of  Mrs.  Smith,  as  above.  H.  H.]  "  in  which,  also,  no  kind  of 
chemical  preparation  is  employed.  Finally,  where  savages  are 
concerned,  the  hardness  of  the  skins  of  their  feet  is  dwelt 
upon.  But,  first,  the  sole  of  a  boot  would  be  scorched  in  the 
circumstances,  while  their  feet  are  not  affected;  next,  the 
savages'  feet  were  not  leathery  (so  Dr.  Hocken  avers) ;  thirdly, 
one  of  the  Europeans  who  walked  through  the  fire  at  Rarotonga 
declares  that  the  soles  of  his  own  feet  are  peculiarly  tender. 
Thus  every  known  physical  or  conjectured  psychical  condition 
of  immunity  fails  to  meet  the  case,  and  we  are  left  wholly 
without  an  ascertained,  or  a  good  conjectural,  '  reason  why ' 
for  the  phenomena " 

Mr.  Lang  cites  (Pr.  XV,  4) : 

Te  Umu-ti,  or  Fire-Walking  Ceremony 

(From  the  Journal  of  the  Polynesian  Society) 

"In    this  Journal,  Vol.  II,  p.   105,    Miss    Teuira    Henry 

describes  this  ceremony  as  practised  in  Raiatea,  of  the  Society 

Group.     We  have  lately  received  from  Colonel  Gudgeon  the 

following   account    of   his   experiences Since   the   date   of 

the  paper  quoted,  it  has  come  to  light  that  the  Maoris  of 
New  Zealand  were  equally  acquainted  with  this  ceremony, 
which  was  performed  by  their  ancestors.  On  reading  Colonel 
Gudgeon's  account  to  some  old  chiefs  of  the  Urewera  tribe, 
they  expressed  no  surprise,  and  said  that  their  ancestors  could 
also  perform  the  ceremony,  though  it  has  long  gone  out  of 
practice. — Editors." 

Colonel  Gudgeon  says: 

"  The  tohunga  (priest)  and  his  tauira  (pupil)  walked  each 
to  the  oven,  and  then  halting,  the  prophet  spoke  a  few  words, 
and  then  struck  the  edge  of  the  oven  with  the  ti"  [A  native 
Draccena.  H.  H.]  "  branches.  This  was  three  times  repeated, 


204  AutoUnesis  [Bk.  II,  Pi  II 

and  then  they  walked  slowly  and  deliberately  over  the  two 
fathoms  of  hot  stones.  When  this  was  done,  the  tohunga  came 
to  us,  and  his  disciple  handed  his  ti  branch  to  Mr.  Goodwin,  at 
whose  place  the  ceremony  came  off,  and  they  went  through  the 
ceremony.  Then  the  tohunga  said  to  Mr.  Goodwin,  '  I  hand 
my  mana  (power)  over  to  you ;  lead  your  friends  across.  Now, 
there  were  four  Europeans — Dr.  W.  Craig,  Dr.  George  Craig, 
Mr.  Goodwin,  and  myself — and  I  can  only  say  that  we  stepped 
out  boldly.  I  got  across  unscathed,  and  only  one  of  the  party 
was  badly  burned;  and  he,  it  is  said,  was  spoken  to,  but,  like 
Lot's  wife,  looked  behind  him — a  thing  against  all  rules. . . . 
A  man  must  have  mana  to  do  it;  if  he  has  not,  it  will  be 
too  late  when  he  is  on  the  hot  stone. . . .  Quite  half-an-hour 
afterwards  someone  remarked  to  the  priest  that  the  stones 
would  not  be  hot  enough  to  cook  the  ti.  His  only  answer  was 
to  throw  his  green  branch  on  the  oven,  and  in  a  quarter  of 
a  minute  it  was  blazing.  As  I  have  eaten  a  fair  share  of  the 
ti  cooked  in  the  oven,  I  am  in  a  position  to  say  that  it  was 

hot  enough  to  cook  it  well 

"I  did  not  walk  quickly  across  the  oven,  but  with  delibera- 
tion, because  I  feared  that  I  should  tread  on  a  sharp  point  of 

the  stones  and  fall All  I  really  felt  when  the  task   was 

accomplished  was  a  tingling  sensation  not  unlike  slight  elec- 
tric shocks  on  the  soles  of  my  feet,  and  this  continued  for 
seven  hours  or  more.  The  really  funny  thing  is  that,  though 
the  stones  were  hot  enough  an  hour  afterwards  to  burn  up 
green  branches  of  the  ti,  the  very  tender  skin  of  my  feet 
was  not  even  hardened  by  the  fire." 

Mr.  Lang  comments  (Pr.  XV,  5) : 

"  On  this  report  a  few  remarks  may  be  offered.  (1)  No 
preparation  of  any  chemical,  herbal,  or  other  sort  was  applied 
to  the  Europeans,  at  least.  (2)  '  The  handing  over  the  mono ' 
(or  power)  was  practised  by  Home,  sometimes  successfully  (it 
is  alleged),  as  when  Mr.  S.  C.  Hall's  scalp  and  white  locks 
were  unharmed  by  a  red-hot  coal;  sometimes  unsuccessfully. 
A  clergyman  of  my  acquaintance  still  bears  the  blister  caused 
when  he  accepted  a  red-hot  coal  from  the  hand  of  Home,  as  he 
informs  me  by  letter.  (3)  The  '  walk '  was  shorter  than  seems 
common :  only  twelve  feet,  four  paces.  (4)  A  friend  of  Colonel 
Gudgeon's  was  badly  burnt,  and  the  reason  assigned  was  a 
good  folk-lore  reason,  since  the  days  of  Lot's  wife,  of  Theoc- 
ritus, and  of  Virgil:  he  looked  behind.  (5)  The  feeling  as 
if  of  '  slight  electric  shocks '  is  worthy  of  notice.  (6)  Colonel 
Gudgeon  clearly  believes  that  a  man  without  mana  had  better 
not  try,  and  by  mono,  here,  he  probably  means  'nerve,'  as  we 
can  hardly  suppose,  in  spite  of  Home,  that  mana,  in  a  super- 
normal sense,  can  be  '  handed  over '  by  one  man  to  another." 


Ch.  XIII]  Fire-Walking  in  Fiji  205 

From  an  account  of  the  Fiji  Fire  Ceremony.  By  Dr.  T.  M. 
Hocken,  F.L.S.  (Pr.  XV,  6)  : 

"  A  number  of  almost  nude  Fijians  walk  quickly  and  un- 
harmed across . . .  the  pavement  of  a  huge  native  oven — 
termed  '  lovo ' — in  which  shortly  afterwards  are  cooked  the 
succulent,  sugary  roots  and  pith  of  the  Cordyline  terminalis, 
one  of  the  cabbage  trees,  known  to  the  Maoris  as  the  '  ///  and  to 
the  Fijians  as  the  '  masawe.'  This  wonderful  power  of  fire- 
walking  is  now  not  only  very  rarely  exercised,  but,  at  least 

as  regards  Fiji,  is  confined  to  a  small  clan  or  family 

They  steadily  descended  the  oven  slope  in  single  file,  and 
walked,  as  I  think,  leisurely,  but  as  others  of  our  party  think, 
quickly,  across  and  around  the  stones,  leaving  the  oven  at  the 
point  of  entrance.  The  leader,  who  was  longest  in  the  oven, 

was  a  second  or  two  under  half  a  minute  therein 1  gained 

permission  to  examine  one  or  two  of  the  fire-walkers  prior  to 
their  descent  into  the  oven. . . .  The  pulse  was  unaffected,  and 
the  skin,  legs,  and  feet  were  free  from  any  apparent  ap- 
plication. I  assured  myself  of  this  by  touch,  smell,  and 
taste,  not  hesitating  to  apply  my  tongue  as  a  corroborative. 
The  foot-soles  were  comparatively  soft  and  flexible — by  no 

means  leathery  and  insensible This  careful  examination 

was  repeated  immediately  after  egress  from  the  oven,  and 
with  the  same  result. . . .  No  incantations  or  other  religious 
ceremonial  were  observed.  Though  these  were  formerly  prac- 
tised, they  have  gradually  fallen  into  disuse  since  the  intro- 
duction of  Christianity 

"  I  am  absolutely  certain  as  to  the  truth  of  the  facts  and 
the  bona  fides  of  the  actors.  A  feature  is  that,  wherever  this 
power  is  found,  it  is  possessed  by  but  a  limited  few.  I  was 
assured,  too,  that  any  person  holding  the  hand  of  one  of  the  fire- 
walkers  could  himself  pass  through  the  oven  unharmed 

"  Dr.  Sementini  of  Naples  found  that  frequent  friction  with 
sulphurous  acid  rendered  him  insensible  to  red-hot  iron;  a 
solution  of  alum  did  the  same.  A  layer  of  powdered  sugar 
covered  with  soap  made  his  tongue  insensible  to  heat.  In  these 
and  similar  instances,  however,  an  explanation,  though  probably 
not  a  very  sufficient  one,  has  been  given,  but  in  that  forming 
the  subject  of  this  paper  no  solution  has  been  offered 

"  My  next  case  occurs  among  a  civilized  race,  the  Japanese, 
and  is  vouched  for  by  Mr.  Lafcadio  Hearn . . .  and  by  Colonel 
Andrew  Haggard  (The  Field,  May  20th,  1899,  p.  724).  Colonel 

Haggard  saw  the  fire-walk  done  in  Tokio,  on  April  9th,  1899 

Ablutions  in  cold  water  were  made  by  the  performers,  and 
Colonel  Haggard  was  told  by  one  young  lady  that  she  had  not 
only  done  the  fire-walk,  but  had  been  '  able  to  sit  for  a  long  time, 
in  winter,  immersed  in  ice-cold  water,  without  feeling  the  cold 
in  the  least.' 


206  Autokinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  II 

"In  a  private  letter,  Dr.  Schischmanof  hints  at  extase 
religieuse,  as  in  the  self-mutilations  of  Dervishes  and  Fakirs. 
Their  performances  are  extraordinary  enough,  but  there  was  no 
religious  ecstasy  in  the  little  Japanese  boy  of  six,  whom  Colonel 
Haggard  saw  pass  through  the  fire,  none  in  Colonel  Gudgeon, 
none  in  the  Fijians  observed  by  Dr.  Hocken."  [And  none  in 
Mrs.  Smith.  H.  H.] 

Many  other  instances,  ancient  and  modern,  with  reflections 
upon  them,  are  given  by  Mr.  Lang.  He  also  discusses  the 
subject  in  his  book  on  Modern  Mythology. 

I  quote  from  Sir  William  Crookes  (Pr.  VI,  103f.).  Note 
date,  Wednesday,  March  9,  1871 : 

"  Mr.  Home  sank  back  in  his  chair  with  his  eyes  closed  and 
remained  still  for  a  few  minutes.  He  then  rose  up  in  a  trance 
and  made  signs  for  his  eyes  to  be  blindfolded.  This  was  done. 
He  walked  about  the  room  in  an  undecided  sort  of  manner, 
came  up  to  each  of  the  sitters  and  made  some  remark  to  them. 
He  went  to  the  candle  on  a  side  table  (close  to  the  large 
table)  and  passed  his  fingers  backwards  and  forwards  through 
the  flame  several  times  so  slowly  that  they  must  have  been 
severely  burnt  under  ordinary  circumstances.  He  then  held 
his  fingers  up,  smiled  and  nodded  as  if  pleased,  took  up  a 
fine  cambric  handkerchief  belonging  to  Miss  Douglas,  folded 
it  up  on  his  right  hand  and  went  to  the  fire.  Here  he  threw 
off  the  bandage  from  his  eyes  and  by  means  of  the  tongs  lifted 
a  piece  of  red  hot  charcoal  from  the  center  and  deposited  it 
on  the  folded  cambric;  bringing  it  across  the  room,  he  told 
us  to  put  out  the  candle  which  was  on  the  table,  knelt  down 
close  to  Mrs.  W.  F.  and  spoke  to  her  about  it  in  a  low  voice. 
Occasionally  he  fanned  the  coal  to  a  white  heat  with  his 
breath.  Coming  a  little  further  round  the  room,  he  spoke  to 
Miss  Douglas,  saying:  'We  shall  have  to  burn  a  very  small 
hole  in  the  handkerchief.  We  have  a  reason  for  this  which 
you  do  not  see.'  Presently  he  took  the  coal  back  to  the  fire 
and  handed  the  handkerchief  to  Miss  Douglas.  A  small  hole 
about  half  an  inch  in  diameter  was  burnt  in  the  center,  and 
there  were  two  small  points  near  it,  but  it  was  not  even  singed 
anywhere  else.  (I  took  the  handkerchief  away  with  me,  and 
on  testing  it  in  my  laboratory,  found  that  it  had  not  undergone 
the  slightest  chemical  preparation  which  could  have  rendered 
it  fireproof.) 

"  Mr.  Home  again  went  to  the  fire  and,  after  stirring  the 
hot  coal  about  with  his  hand,  took  out  a  red  hot  piece  nearly 
as  big  as  an  orange  and,  putting  it  on  his  right  hand,  covered 
it  over  with  his  left  hand  so  as  to  almost  completely  enclose 
it,  and  then  blew  into  the  small  furnace  thus  extemporized 
until  the  lump  of  charcoal  was  nearly  white-hot,  and  then 


Ch.  XIII]      Home  and  the  Fire  in  the  Grate  207 

drew  my  attention  to  the  lambent  flame  which  was  flickering 
over  the  coal  and  licking  round  his  fingers;  he  fell  on  his 
knees,  looked  up  in  a  reverent  manner,  held  up  the  coal  in 
front  and  said :  '  Is  not  Qod  good  ?  Are  not  His  laws  won- 
derful?/ 

"  Going  again  to  the  fire,  he  took  out  another  hot  coal  with 
his  hand  and  holding  it  up  said  to  me :  'Is  not  that  a  beautiful 
large  bit,  William?  We'  [That  is:  the  alleged  spirits  pos- 
sessing him.  H.  II.)  '  want  to  bring  that  to  you.  Pay  no 
attention  at  present.'  The  coal,  however,  was  not  brought. 

"  At  Mr.  Home's  request,  whilst  he  was  entranced,  I  went 
with  him  to  the  fireplace  in  the  back  drawing-room.  He  said: 
1  We '  [The  alleged  "  spirits."  H.  H.]  '  want  you  to  notice  par- 
ticularly what  Dan  is  doing.'  Accordingly,  I  stood  close  to 
the  fire  and  stooped  down  to  it  when  he  put  his  hands  in.  He 
very  deliberately  pulled  the  lumps  of  hot  coal  off,  one  at  a 
time,  with  his  right  hand  and  touched  one  which  was  bright 
red.  He  then  said :  '  The  power  is  not  strong  on  Dan's  hand, 
as  we  have  been  influencing  the  handkerchief  most.  It  is 
more  difficult  to  influence  an  inanimate  body  like  that  than 
living  flesh,  so,  as  the  circumstances  were  favorable,  we  thought 
we  would  show  you  that  we  could  prevent  a  red-hot  coal  from 
burning  a  handkerchief.  We  will  collect  more  power  on  the 
handkerchief  and  repeat  it  before  you.  Now ! ' 

"  Mr.  Home  then  waved  the  handkerchief  about  in  the  air 
two  or  three  times,  held  it  up  above  his  head,  and  then  folded 
it  up  and  laid  it  on  his  hand  like  a  cushion :  putting  his  other 
hand  into  the  fire,  took  out  a  large  lump  of  cinder  red-hot  at 
the  lower  part,  and  placed  the  red  part  on  the  handkerchief. 
Under  ordinary  circumstances  it  would  have  been  in  a  blaze. 
In  about  half  a  minute  he  took  it  off  the  handkerchief  with 
his  hand,  saying :  '  As  the  power  is  not  strong,  if  we  leave 
the  coal  longer  it  will  burn.'  He  then  put  it  on  his  hand 
and  brought  it  to  the  table  in  the  front  room,  where  all  but 
myself  had  remained  seated." 

There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  Sir  William  Crookes 
saw  what  he  says  he  did,  though  it  was  doubted  for  many 
years,  and  he  suffered  in  consequence.  It  is  probably  not 
widely  doubted  now,  and  was  not  widely  doubted  when  he 
received  his  knighthood.  The  only  open  questions  in  the 
present  state  of  our  knowledge  are :— did  he  see  it  in  his  sleep? 
— was  he  hypnotized  ? 

If  he  was,  another  witness  was  too ;  for  along  comes  Stainton 
Moses,  and  testifies  to  even  less  possible  (if  that  is  possible) 
things  of  the  same  kind.  Probably  his  truthful  intentions 
stand  as  high  as  Sir  William  Crookes'. 


208  AutoUnesis  [Bk.  II,  Ft.  II 

His  account  is  dated  two  years  later  than  Sir  William's 
(April  30,  1873),  and  refers  to  a  different  occasion  (Pr.  IX, 
307): 

"By  degrees  Mr.  Home's  hands  and  arms  began  to  twitch 
and  move  involuntarily.  I  should  say  that  he  has  been  partly 
paralyzed,  drags  one  of  his  legs,  moves  with  difficulty,  stoops, 
and  can  endure  very  little  physical  exertion.  As  he  passed 
into  the  trance  state  he  drew  power  from  the  circle  by  extending 
his  arms  to  them  and  mesmerizing  himself.  All  these  acts 
were  involuntary.  He  gradually  passed  into  the  trance  state, 
and  rose  from  the  table,  erect,  and  a  different  man  from  what 
he  was.  He  walked  firmly,  dashed  out  his  arms  and  legs  with 
great  power,  and  passed  round  to  Mr.  Crookes.  He  mesmer- 
ized him,  and  appeared  to  draw  power  from  him.  He  then 
went  to  the  fireplace,  removed  the  guard,  and  sat  down  on 
the  hearth-rug.  There  he  seemed  to  hold  a  conversation  by 
signs  with  a  spirit.  He  repeatedly  bowed,  and  finally  set  to 
work  to  mesmerize  his  head  again.  He  ruffled  his  bushy  hair 
until  it  stood  out  like  a  mop,  and  then  deliberately  lay  down 
and  put  his  head  in  the  bright  wood  fire.  The  hair  was  in  the 
blaze,  and  must,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  have  been 
singed  off.  His  head  was  in  the  grate,  and  his  neck  on  a  level 
with  the  top  bar.  This  was  repeated  several  times.  He  also 
put  his  hand  into  the  fire,  smoothed  away  the  wood  and  coal, 
and  picked  out  a  live  coal,  which  he  held  in  his  hand  for  a 
few  seconds,  but  replaced  soon,  saying  the  power  was  not  suf- 
ficient. He  tried  to  give  a  hot  coal  to  Mr.  Crookes,  but  was 
unable  to  do  it.  He  then  came  to  all  of  us  to  satisfy  us  that 
there  was  no  smell  of  fire  on  his  hair.  There  was  absolutely 
none.  '  The  smell  of  fire  had  not  passed  on  him.'  In  the  trance 
state  he  passed  about  the  room  amongst  the  furniture  without 
touching  any.  He  moved  the  lamp  to  the  mantelpiece.  He 
spoke  in  a  soft,  subdued  voice,  called  himself  '  Dan/  and  said 
he  had  a  work  to  do  in  London.  During  the  evening  we  never 
heard  who  the  spirits  were,  but  I  was  told  that  friends  of 
mine  were  present. 

"  [Mr.  Crookes,  to  whom  I  (Myers)  have  shown  this  ac- 
count, comments  as  follows  twenty  years  later:] 

"  March  9th,  1893. 

"I  have  a  distinct  recollection  of  the  seance  here  described, 
and  can  corroborate  Mr.  Stainton  Moses'  account.  I  was  not 
well  placed  for  seeing  the  first  part  of  the  '  fire  test '  here 

recorded My  back  was  to  the  fire,  and  I  did  not  at  first 

turn  round  to  see  what  he  was  doing.  Being  told  what  was 
taking  place,  I  looked  and  saw  Home  in  the  act  of  raising 
his  head  from  the  fire.  Probably  this  was  the  last  occasion  of 
the  '  several  times '  it  was  repeated,  as  I  have  no  recollection 
of  seeing  it  more  than  once.  On  my  expressing  great  disap- 


Ch.  XIII]       Home  and  Another  Orate  Fire  209 

pointment  at  having  missed  this  test,  Mr.  Home  told  me  to 
leave  my  seat  and  come  with  him  to  the  fire.  He  asked  me 
if  I  should  be  afraid  to  take  a  live  coal  [ember]  from  his 
hand.  I  said,  No,  I  would  take  it  if  he  would  give  it  to  me. 
He  then  put  his  hand  among  the  hot  coals  [embers],  and 
deliberately  picked  out  the  brightest  bit  and  held  it  in  his 
hand  for  a  few  seconds.  He  appeared  to  deliberate  for  a  time, 
and  then  returned  it  to  the  grate,  saying  the  power  was  too 
weak,  and  he  was  afraid  I  might  be  hurt.  During  this  time 
I  was  kneeling  on  the  hearth-rug,  and  am  unable  to  explain 
how  it  was  he  was  not  severely  burnt 

"  I  do  not  believe  in  the  possibility  of  the  ordinary  skin  of 
the  hand  being  so  prepared  as  to  enable  hot  coals  to  be  han- 
dled with  impunity. ...  It  is  possible  that  the  skin  may  be 
so  hardened  and  thickened  by  such  preparations  that  super- 
ficial charring  might  take  place  without  the  pain  becoming 
great,  but  the  surface  of  the  skin  would  certainly  suffer  severely. 
After  Home  had  recovered  from  the  trance  I  examined  his 
hand  with  care  to  see  if  there  were  any  signs  of  burning  or 
of  previous  preparation.  I  could  detect  no  trace  of  injury  to 
the  skin,  which  was  soft  and  delicate  like  a  woman's.  Neither 
were  there  signs  of  any  preparation  having  been  previously 
applied. 

"  I  have  often  seen  conjurers  and  others  handle  red-hot  coals 
and  iron,  but  there  were  always  palpable  signs  of  burning.  A 
negro  was  once  brought  to  my  laboratory  who  professed  to  be 
able  to  handle  red-hot  iron  with  impunity.  I  was  asked  to 
test  his  pretensions,  and  I  did  so  carefully.  There  was  no 
doubt  he  could  touch  and  hold  for  a  brief  time  red-hot  iron 
without  feeling  much  pain,  and  supposing  his  feet  were  as 
resisting  as  his  hands,  he  could  have  triumphantly  passed  the 
'  red-hot  plowshare '  ordeal.  But  the  house  was  pervaded  for 
hours  after  with  the  odor  of  roast  negro." 

These  two  witnesses  may  have  been  hypnotized,  but  tes- 
timony from  sundry  other  witnesses  to  these  and  other  im- 
possible (?)  performances  of  Home  are  given  in  Journal 
S.  P.  R.  IV  and  IX. 

As  to  collective  hypnotism,  there  are  probably  no  eviden- 
tially good  cases  on  record.  The  celebrated  East  India  one 
of  a  generation  ago  is  "  good  "  enough,  however,  to  repeat 
for  the  present  generation.  A  fakir  threw  a  rope  up  twenty 
or  thirty  feet  into  the  air,  the  end  still  trailing  on  the  ground. 
Then  he  climbed  it,  coiled  a  little  at  the  top,  and  sat  on  the 
coil,  and  then,  if  I  remember  the  yarn  correctly,  drew  the 
rope  up  after  him.  After  he  had  performed  the  feat  sundry 


210  AutoJcinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pi  II 

times  in  several  places,  it  occurred  to  somebody  to  photograph 
him  in  his  exalted  position.  The  plate  showed  no  fakir  and 
no  rope.  The  story  was  repeated  in  the  press  throughout 
the  civilized  world,  but  on  investigation,  there  proved  to  be 
no  more  story  than  there  was  rope  or  fakir  on  the  sensitized 
plate,  or  than  there  was  sensitized  plate.  Before  the  investi- 
gation, however,  the  story  was  credited  to  collective  hypno- 
tism. 

Elongation 

Before  closing  this  department  of  the  subject,  perhaps  I 
ought  at  least  to  allude  to  the  alleged  elongations  of  the  bodies 
of  Home  and  Morse  and  Herne.  I  allude  to  them  because,  to 
my  mind,  they  tend  to  cast  discredit  on  the  other  stories  of 
Home,  and,  by  implication,  on  all  the  rest  of  the  marvels 
chronicled  by  the  S.  P.  R.  Therefore,  in  what  professes  to 
be  a  general  sketch  of  all  those  alleged  phenomena,  it  would 
not  be  fair  to  suppress  the  elongations.  If  I  must  hold  an 
opinion,  it  would  incline  to  ascribe  them  to  hallucination  on 
the  part  of  the  witnesses,  as  it  does  regarding  Home's  per- 
formances with  hot  coals,  though  I  should  not  be  surprised  if 
the  world  were  yet  to  come  into  possession  of  a  mode  of 
zob'magnetism  resisting  heat,  if  it  has  not  one  already  illus- 
trated in  the  Fire-walk. 

With  my  impression  regarding  these  alleged  elongations,  I 
do  not  feel  that  my  duty  calls  for  more  space  than  a  reference 
to  the  testimony  from  several  witnesses,  which  is  in  Journal 
S.  P.  R.,  IV,  123-6;  X,  104f. 

Stigmata  and  Blisters 

Now  by  the  way  of  this  resistance  to  what  usually  affects 
the  body,  we  come  to  another  direction  of  the  body's  energies. 
Whether  the  future  will  associate  either  of  them  with  what 
we  now  call  telekinesis  or  autokinesis  is  of  course  doubtful. 
But  as  I  get  the  eels  out  of  the  pot,  I  keep  those  nearest 
alike  as  well  together  as  I  can.  If  you  don't  see  the  point 
of  the  metaphor,  try  to  write  a  little  on  these  subjects  yourself. 

From  the  bleeding  spots  on  hands  and  feet  symbolizing  the 
wounds  made  by  the  nails  of  the  cross,  asserted  to  have  been 
found  on  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  and  other  religious  enthusiasts, 


Ch.  XIII]    Mentally  Induced  Stigmata  and  Blisters        211 

kindred  phenomena  run  all  the  way  down  through  the  miracles 
of  Lourdes,  to  sundry  well  attested  recent  phenomena,  and 
branch  off  into  hypnotic  therapeutics,  and  Faith  Cure  and 
Christian  Science. 

The  scientific  world  paid  little  attention  to  these  stories 
before  the  case  of  Louise  Lateau,  of  Belgium,  who  in  1868  be- 
gan to  exude  blood  from  side,  hands,  feet,  and  forehead,  every 
Friday.  There  was  an  element  of  religious  ecstasy  in  the 
case.  It  is  as  well  vouched  for  as  most  other  phenomena 
prominent  in  medical  history.  Myers  gives  the  particulars 
in  Human  Personality,  I,  492.  There,  and  also  in  the  Journal 
(not  Proceedings)  S.  P.  R.,  Ill,  100  (where,  as  well  as  in 
the  Proceedings,  many  of  his  chapters  first  appeared)  he 
gives  a  dozen  well  authenticated  cases  somewhat  resembling 
the  Lateau  case,  variously  due  to  ordinary  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion, religious  ecstasy,  and  other  forms  of  self-hypnotism  or 
auto-suggestion. 

Before  going  into  them,  however,  let  us  anticipate  Foster's 
exhibition  in  Chapter  XVIII.  He  is  there  said  to  have  shown 
some  names  "in  letters  formed  of  the  living  blood  at  that 
moment  coursing  through  the  hand." 

It  looks  as  if  the  phenomenon  should  be  classed  with 
Stigmata.  But  the  following  staggering  statements  from 
Bartlett  (op.  cit.,  p.  23)  look  as  if  it  was  not  even  voluntary. 

"It  was  in  the  early  days  of  my  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Foster  that  a  friend  of  mine,  by  the  name  of  Adams,  from 
Kvan.-villr.  In.!.,  called  upon  me.  As  he  was  leaving,  Mr. 
Foster  told  him  that  in  all  his  experience  he  had  never  known 
one  individual  to  bring  so  many  spirits;  that  he  should  suppose 
the  whole  Adams  family  had  appeared  to  him,  the  room  being 
literally  packed  with  them,  coming  and  going.  About  two 
o'clock  the  next  morning,  Mr.  Foster  called  to  me  (I  was  sleep- 
ing in  the  same  room),  saying:  'George,  will  you  please  light 
the  gas?  I  cannot  sleep.  The  room  is  still  filled  with  the 
Adams  family,  and  they  seem  to  be  writing  their  names  all 
over  me.'  And  to  my  astonishment,  a  list  of  names  of  the 
Adams  family  were  displayed  upon  his  body.  I  counted  eleven 
distinct  names:  one  was  written  across  his  forehead,  others  on 
his  arms,  and  several  on  his  back.  It  seemed  to  me  then,  and 
still  seems  to  me,  as  being  almost  miraculous.  I  can  simply 
term  it  unexplained,  genuine  phenomena,  where  trickery  was 
impossible." 


212  Autolcinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  II 

Whether  or  not  it  was  stigmata — a  real  phenomenon  of  the 
strange  involuntary  self  which  also  saw  his  visions,  or  whether 
it  was  a  trick  to  make  more  interesting  the  exhibition  of  his 
real  powers,  why  should  he  have  played  such  a  trick  on 
Bartlett? 

You  can  produce  the  effects  yourself  by  writing  on  your 
skin  with  a  blunt  instrument  (I've  seen  it  done  with  a 
match)  and  then  rubbing  the  spot.  Whether  Foster  did  it 
that  way,  I  doubt :  for  if  so,  sometimes  he  must  have  done 
it  through  his  coat  sleeve,  which  I  cannot;  and  at  times  the 
writing  showed  gradually  while  the  sitter  looked  at  the 
apparently  undisturbed  skin.  Mr.  Bartlett  says: 

"  As  soon  as  Mr.  Foster  and  I  read  that  explanation,  we  tried 

the  experiment,   but   it   was   a  failure If   the  number   of 

names  which  appeared  on  his  arm  and  hand  in  one  week 
had  been  caused  by  scratching  matches  on  his  flesh,  I  think 
he  would  have  been  badly  mutilated.  I  know  of  no  explanation 
of  this  '  blood-red  writing  on  the  arm.' " 

Myers  considers  the  general  subject  in  Pr.  VII,  336-9, 
whence  I  take  the  following: 

"Professor  Beaunis  and  Dr.  Krafft-Ebing  have  slowed  the 
pulse  by  hypnotic  suggestion;  and  these  savants,  as  well  as 
Professor  Bernheim,  M.  Focachon,  and  others,  have  produced 
redness  and  blisters  by  the  same  means.  Drs.  Mabille,  Kama- 
dier,  Bourru,  Burot,  have  produced  localized  hypersemia,  epis- 
taxis  "  [nosebleed] ,  "  ecchymosis  "  [a  spot  produced  by  extrav- 
asated  blood  under  the  skin].  "Dr.  Forel  and  others  have 
restored  arrested  secretions  at  a  precisely  fixed  hour.  Dr. 
Krafft-Ebing  has  produced  a  rise  of  temperature  at  moments 
fixed  by  himself, — a  rise,  for  instance,  from  37  deg.  to  38.5 
deg.  C.  Burot  has  lowered  the  temperature  of  a  hand  as  much 
as  10  deg.  C.  by  suggestion.  He  supposes  that  the  mechanism 
employed  is  the  constriction  of  the  brachial  artery,  beneath 
the  biceps.  '  How  can  it  be,'  he  asks,  '  that  when  one  merely 
says  to  the  subject,  "your  hand  will  become  cold,"  the  vaso- 
motor  nervous  system  answers  by  constricting  the  artery  to 
the  degree  necessary  to  achieve  the  result  desired  ?  C'est  ce 
qui  depasse  noire  imagination.'" 

The  following  is  an  abstract  of  Dr.  Levillain's  account  of 
an  experiment  performed  by  Professor  Charcot  before  a  large 
class  at  the  Salpetriere : 

"  On  April  26th,  1890,  a  hysterical  woman  was  deeply  hypno- 


Ch.  XIII]     Mentally  Induced  Stigmata  and  Blisters      213 

tized,  and  it  was  suggested  to  her  that  her  right  hand  and 
wrist  would  swell  and  become  cyanosed.  After  she  was  woke 
[sir\,  this  suggestion  gradually  realized  itself,  and  in  four 
days  the  right  hand  was  in  the  condition  of  that  of  the 
patients  who  had  had  spontaneous  attacks.  There  was  a 
smooth  surface,  hardly  any  pitting  on  pressure,  but  much  dull- 
blue  mottled  swelling  (which  had  obliged  her  to  discontinue 
wearing  her  rings),  and  anaesthesia.  A  bright  red  patch  was 
produced  by  touch. . . .  M.  Charcot  re-hypnotized  the  patient, 
and  assured  her  that  her  hand  was  quite  natural  again,  helping 
his  suggestion  with  a  little  massage.  After  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
the  anaesthesia,  venous  color,  and  swelling  were  gone. 

"  The  subliminal  consciousness  "  [We  will  consider  this  ex- 
pression later.  H.  H.],  "  it  will  be  seen,  was  able  to  turn  out 
to  order  the  most  complicated  novelty  in  the  way  of  hysterical 
freaks  of  circulation.  Let  us  turn  to  an  equally  marked  dis- 
turbance of  the  inflammatory  type,  the  production,  namely,  of 
suppurating  blisters  by  the  word  of  command.  This  phenome- 
non has  a  peculiar  interest,  since,  from  the  accident  of  a 
strong  emotional  association  with  the  idea  of  stigmata  on  hands 
and  feet,  this  special  organic  effect  has  been  anticipated  by 
the  introverted  broodings  of  a  line  of  mystics,  from  8.  Francis 
of  Assisi  to  Louise  Lateau.  A  strange  confirmation  of  ancient 
legend!  A  singular  testimony  to  the  intensity  of  the  medita- 
tions of  that  great  saint  who 

Nel  crudo  sasso  intra  Tevere  ed  arno 
Da  Cristo  prese  1' ultimo  sigillo, 
Che  le  sue  membra  due  anni  portarno." 

"The  following  experiment  was  performed  by  Dr.  J.  Ry- 
balkin,  in  presence  of  his  colleagues  at  the  Hopital  Marie,  at 
St.  Petersburg.  Dr.  Ry  balk  in  had  previously  experimented  in 
the  same  way  with  his  subject. 

"The  subject ...  was  hypnotized  at  8.30  a.  m.,  and  told: 
'When  you  awake,  you  will  be  cold;  you  will  go  and  warm 
yourself  at  the  stove,  and  you  will  burn  your  forearm  on 
the  line  which  I  have  traced  out.  This  will  hurt  you;  a 
redness  will  appear  on  your  arm;  it  will  swell;  there  will  be 
blisters.'  On  being  awakened,  the  patient  obeyed  the  sugges- 
tion. He  even  uttered  a  cry  of  pain  at  the  moment  when  he 
touched  the  door  of  the  stove, — which  had  not  been  lighted. 

"  Some  minutes  later,  a  redness,  without  swelling,  could  be 
seen  at  the  place  indicated,  and  the  patient  complained  of 
sharp  pain  on  its  being  touched.  A  bandage  was  put  on  his 
arm,  and  he  went  to  bed,  under  our  eyes. 

"  At  the  close  of  our  visit,  at  11.30,  we  observed  a  consider- 
able swelling,  accompanied  with  redness  and  with  a  papulous 
erythema  at  the  place  of  the  burn.  A  mere  touch  anywhere 


214  Autokinesis  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  II 

within  four  centimeters  of  the  burn  caused  severe  pain.  The 
surgeon,  Dr.  Pratine,  placed  a  bandage  on  the  forearm,  which 
extended  up  to  the  superior  third  of  the  arm. 

"  When  the  dressing  was  removed  at  10  next  morning  we 
saw  at  the  place  of  the  burn  two  blisters,  one  of  the  size  of 
a  nut  and  the  other  of  a  pea,  and  a  number  of  small  blisters. 
Around  this  tract  the  skin  was  red  and  sensitive.  Before  the 
experiment  this  region  had  been  anesthetic.  At  3  p.  m.  the 
blisters  met  in  one  large  blister. ...  In  the  evening  the  blister, 
which  was  full  of  a  semi-transparent  yellowish  fluid,  burst, 
and  a  scab  formed  on  the  raw  skin.  A  week  later  ordinary 
sensibility  returned  to  the  scar,  and  after  a  fortnight  there 
was  only  a  red  mark  in  the  place  of  the  bum." 

Here  is  a  case  more  suggestive  in  many  ways  than  those 
already  given,  from  Myers  (op.  cit.,  I,  493) : 

"  A  girl  of  about  eighteen,  who  complained  to  me  one  day 

of  a  pain  through  her  chest 1  magnetized ...  as  usual,  and 

told  ...  in  a  whisper : 

"  *  You  will  have  a  red  cross  appear  on  the  upper  part  of 
your  chest,  only  on  every  Friday.  In  the  course  of  some  time 
the  words  Sancta  above  the  cross,  and  Crucis  underneath  it  will 
appear  also;  at  same  time  a  little  blood  will  come  from  the 
cross.'  In  my  vest  pocket  I  had  a  cross  of  rock  crystal.  I 
opened  the  top  button  of  her  dress  and  placed  this  cross  on 
the  upper  part  of  the  manubrium,  a  point  she  could  not  see 
unless  by  aid  of  a  looking-glass,  saying  to  her,  '  This  is  the  spot 

where  the  cross  will  appear.'  This  was  on  a  Tuesday 

Next  day  Mrs.  G.  told  me  she  had  seen  the  girl  now  and  again 
put  her  left  wrist  over  the  top  part  of  her  chest,  over  the  dress; 
this  was  frequently  repeated,  as  if  she  felt  some  tickling  or 
slight  irritation  about  the  part,  but  not  otherwise  noticed;  she 
seemed  to  carry  her  hand  up  now  and  then  unconsciously. 
When  Friday  came  I  said,  after  breakfast,  '  Come,  let  me 
magnetize  you  a  little;  you  have  not  had  a  dose  for  several 
days.'  She  was  always  willing  to  be  magnetized'  as  she  always 
expressed  herself  as  feeling  very  much  rested  and  comfortable 
afterwards.  In  a  few  minutes  she  was  in  a  deep  sleep.  I  un- 
buttoned the  top  part  of  her  dress,  and  there,  to  my  complete 
and  utter  astonishment,  was  a  pink  cross,  exactly  over  the 
place  where  I  had  put  the  one  of  crystal.  It  appeared  every 
Friday,  and  was  invisible  on  all  other  days.  This  was  seen  by 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  G.,  and  my  old  friend  and  colleague,  Dr.  B. 
. . .  About  six  weeks  after  the  cross  first  appeared  I  had  occa- 
sion to  take  a  trip  to  the  Sandwich  Islands.  Before  going 
I  magnetized  the  girl,  told  her  that  the  cross  would  keep  on 

showing  itself  every  Friday  for  about  four  months 1  also 

asked  Dr.  B.  and  Mr.  G.  to  write  me  by  every  mail  to  Hono- 


Ch.  XIII]         Faith  Cure.     Christian  Science  215 

lulu,  and  tell  me  if  the  cross  kept  on  appearing  every  Friday 

While  I  was  on  the  Sandwich  Islands  I  received  two  letters 
from  Mr.  G.  and  one  from  Dr.  B.  by  three  different  mails,  each 
telling  that  the  cross  kept  on  making  its  appearance  as  usual; 
blood  had  been  noticed  once,  and  also  part  of  the  letter  S  above 
the  cross,  nothing  more.  I  returned  in  a  little  less  than  three 
months.  The  cross  still  made  its  appearance  every  Friday,  and 
did  so  for  about  a  month  more,  but  getting  paler  and  paler  until 
it  became  invisible,  as  nearly  as  possible  four  months  from  the 

time  I  left  for  the  Sandwich  Islands 

"M.  H.  BIGGS,  M.  D." 

To  this  account  Edmund  Gurney  adds  in  a  note  quoted 
by  Myers  (op.  cit.,  I,  493) : 

"  As  to  the  first  two  of  these  cases  [the  one  quoted  above  and 
another],  it  is  possible  to  suppose  that  the  hypnotic  suggestion 
took  effect  indirectly,  by  causing  the  girls  to  rub  a  patch  of  the 
right  shape.  The  suggestion  may  have  been  received  as  a 
command,  and  there  would  be  nothing  very  surprising  in  a 
subject's  automatically  adopting  the  right  means  to  fulfil  a 
previous  hypnotic  command.  And  even  the  third  case  might 
be  so  accounted  for,  if  the  rubbing  took  place  in  sleep.  At  the 
same  time,  it  would  be  rash,  I  think,  absolutely  to  reject  the 
hypothesis  of  the  more  direct  effect." 

In  the  sources  I  have  quoted  there  are  hosts  of  cases  as 
remarkable  as  those  I  have  given. 

Faith  Cure,  Christian  Science 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  say  much  about  these  here:  for 
abundant  literature  is  accessible.  The  votaries  have  got  hold 
of  a  truth,  though  many  of  them  have  got  it  by  the  tail.  The 
facts  have  been  obscured  by  the  fancies.  Yet  through  religious 
associations,  some  phases  of  truth  can  be  got  by  many  people 
who  otherwise,  outside  of  commonplaces,  could  not  get  any 
phases  at  all.  This  is  true  even  of  morality.  Many  a  mind 
incapable  of  grasping  the  sanctions  of  Natural  Law,  not  to 
speak  of  subordinating  inclinations  for  the  sake  of  conformity 
with  it,  will  perform  no  end  of  feats, — objective  and  subjec- 
tive, and  make  no  end  of  sacrifices,  in  conformity  with  a  sup- 
posed command  from  even  a  mythical  law-giver. 

My  allotment  of  space  for  the  subject  is  not  small  because  I 
consider  its  importance  small,  but,  as  already  intimated,  be- 
cause of  the  abundant  discussion  within  everybody's  reach. 


BOOK  II  — PART  III 

PSYCHOKINESIS 

CHAPTER  XIV 

A  RATHER  small  allotment  of  space  for  a  "  Part "  is  made 
here  in  the  interest  of  classification.  Perhaps  the  future  may 
furnish  more  material  for  this  division.  Now  assuming 
Telekinesis  to  be  established,  perhaps  we  are  as  nearly  ready 
to  consider  what  I  shall  call  Psychokinesis  as  people  were  a 
generation  ago  to  consider  Telekinesis.  To  introduce  it  here 
is  to  anticipate  the  phenomena  of  mediumship,  but,  as  I  often 
have  occasion  to  remark,  all  these  phenomena  are  so  tangled 
up  that,  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  cross  classifi- 
cation is  often  inevitable. 

We  need  a  name,  and  I  hope  the  one  I  suggest  will  do,  for 
a  mode  of  force  of  which  we  shall  meet  many  indications  here- 
after, and  which  Hodgson  describes  as  follows.  Although  it 
is  incidentally  implied  everywhere  in  the  literature  of  medium- 
ship,  the  passage  I  quote  is  the  only  direct  allusion  to  it  which 
I  know  (Pr.  XIII,  400) : 

"  The  statements  of  the  '  communicators '  as  to  what  occurs  on 
the  physical  side  may  be  put  in  brief  general  terms  as  follows. 
We  all  hare  bodies  composed  of  '  luminiferous  ether '  inclosed  in 
our  flesh  and  blood  bodies.  The  relation  of  Mrs.  Piper's  etherial 
body  to  the  etherial  world,  in  which  the  '  communicators '  claim 
to  dwell,  is  such  that  a  special  store  of  peculiar  energy  is  accumu- 
lated in  connection  with  her  organism,  and  this  appears  to  them 
as  '  a  light. ' . . .  Several '  communicators  '  may  be  in  contact  with 
this  light  at  the  same  time.  There  are  two  chief  '  masses '  of  it  in 
her  case,  one  in  connection  with  the  head,  the  other  in  connection 
with  the  right  arm  and  hand.  Latterly,  that  in  connection  with 
the  hand  has  been  '  brighter '  than  that  in  connection  with  the 
head.  If  the  '  communicator  '  gets  into  contact  with  the  '  light ' 
and  thinks  his  thoughts,  they  tend  to  be  reproduced  by  move- 
ments in  Mrs.  Piper's  organism.  Very  few  can  produce  vocal 
216 


Ch.  XIV]    Mediums  Seem  to  Use  a  Mode  of  Force         217 

effects,  even  when  in  contact  with  the  '  light '  of  the  head,  but 
practically  all  can  produce  writing  movements  when  in  contact 
with  the  '  light '  of  the  hand.  Upon  the  amount  and  brightness 
of  this  *  light,'  ccfteris  paribus,  the  communications  depend. 
When  Mrs.  Piper  is  in  ill-health,  the  '  light '  is  feebler,  and  the 
communications  tend  to  be  less  coherent.  It  also  gets  used  up 
during  a  sitting,  and  when  it  gets  dim  there  is  a  tendency  to 
incoherence  even  in  otherwise  clear  communicators.  In  all  cases, 
coming  into  contacc  with  this  '  light '  tends  to  produce  bewilder- 
ment, and  if  the  contact  is  continued  too  long,  or  the  '  light ' 
becomes  very  dim,  the  consciousness  of  the  communicator  tends 
to  lapse  completely " 

But  we  have  not  the  testimony  of  any  living  observer  for  the 
manifestation  of  this  force  as  a  "  light,"  though  we  have  abun- 
dant testimony  of  its  manifestation  and  fluctuation,  in  the 
varying  degrees  of  vigor  in  mediumistic  phenomena.  Naming 
it,  however,  is  of  course  a  somewhat  tentative  step. 

Hodgson  farther  says  (Pr.  XIII,  410) : 

"  What  it  is  that  gets  used  up  during  the  trance  I  do  not 
definitely  know,  but  that  there  is  something  that  does  get  used 
up,  that  represents  directly  or  indirectly  some  peculiar  form  of 
energy,  that  when  this  is  abundant  the  communications  are 
clearer,  and  that  when,  ceeteris  paribus,  it  approaches  exhaustion, 
the  communications  become  obscure  and  even  absolutely  in- 
coherent, I  have  no  doubt." 


BOOK  II  — PART  IV 
TELEPSYCHOSIS 

CHAPTEE  XV 
INTRODUCTION 

OF  course  these  new  manifestations  of  force  that  we  have 
just  considered  were  generally  attributed  to  "  spirits,"  as 
(pardon  the  frequent  repetition)  have  been  all  new  mani- 
festations of  force;  but  the  indications  seem  to  be  that  the 
inanimate  objects  have  been  moved,  sometimes  voluntarily, 
sometimes  involuntarily,  in  response  to  the  more  or  less  defi- 
nite volitions  of  the  persons  exercising  the  force— that  the 
manifestations  were  psychical  only  in  so  far  as  they  concerned 
the  psyche  of  the  operator. 

We  now  come  to  a  group  of  phenomena  that  have  nothing 
to  do  with  material  objects  external  to  the  communicator,  and 
are  physical  only  as  concerns  the  communicator's  organs  of 
expression. 

The  medium  receives  impressions  apparently  from  other  in- 
telligences than  his  own,  without  the  intervention  of  any 
organs  of  communication  with  which  we  are  familiar.  These 
impressions  include  facts  that  could  have  been  communi- 
cated by  word,  and  also  visions,  auditions,  and  other  sen- 
sations. 

They  have  apparently  been  derived  from  the  minds  of 
persons  present,  persons  distant,  and  ostensibly  persons  no 
longer  in  the  body. 

And  right  here  we  are  met  by  a  strange  fact :  discrete  as 
are  telekinesis  and  telepsychosis,  rare  as  are  the  persons 
manifesting  either,  yet  generally,  not  always,  a  person  mani- 
festing one,  manifests  the  other.  No  hint  of  an  explanation 
of  the  apparent  connection  between  them  has,  so  far  as  I 
know,  yet  appeared.  All  we  can  yet  do  is  to  trace  the  tele- 
218 


Ch.  XV]    Generally  Known  Instances  of  Telepathy         219 

kinetic  power  from  its  molar  manifestations  up  through 
significant  raps,  lights,  etc.,  to  where  these  disappear,  and 
direct  mental  impressions  take  their  places. 

Both  classes  of  phenomena,  telekinetic  and  telepsychic,  were 
manifested  by  Foster,  Home,  and  Moses,  but  only  the  tele- 
psychic  set  through  several  important  mediums  whom  we  shall 
consider  later. 

It  is  hard  to  account  for  the  skepticism  regarding  telepathy 
which  prevailed  till  within  a  dozen  years  among  investigators 
who  had  long  been  familiar  with  it  between  the  hypnotist 
and  his  subject;  and  when  the  whole  cultivated  world  knew 
it  between  the  conductor  and  his  orchestra.  The  following 
extract  from  the  New  York  Evening  Post  of  April  8,  1912, 
is  worth  quoting  in  the  connection.  An  orchestra  had  been 
practising  under  an  average  conductor  for  a  concert  which 
Nikisch  was  to  conduct.  The  writer  says  [italics  mine]  : 

"  The  men  were  tired,  baring  been  rehearsing  all  the  morning 
and  given  a  concert  in  the  afternoon.  Yet  at  seven  o'clock  of 
the  same  day  Nikisch  assembled  them  for  another  rehearsal. 
They  hoped  he  would  make  it  short  and  easy.  He  started  off 
with  the  fifth  Tchaikovsky  symphony.  The  rest  may  be  related 
in  the  player's  own  words,  as  chronicled  in  the  London  Musical 
Times  of  February,  1905: 

" '  Before  we  had  been  playing  fire  minutes  we  were  deeply 
interested,  and,  later,  when  we  came  to  the  big  fortissimo,  we 
not  only  played  like  fiends,  but  we  quite  forgot  we  were  tired. 
For  my  own  part,  I  simply  boiled  over  with  enthusiasm.  I 
could  have  jumped  up  and  shouted — as  a  matter  of  fact,  when 
we  reached  the  end  of  the  first  movement,  we  all  did  rise  from 
our  seats  and  actually  shouted  because  we  could  not  help  it. 
The  weird  part  of  it  all  was  that  we  played  this  symphony 
through — with  scarcely  a  word  of  correction  from  Nikisch — 
quite  differently  from  our  several  previous  performances  of 
the  same  work.  He  simply  looked  at  us,  often  scarcely  moving 
his  baton,  and  we  played  as  those  possessed.  We  made  terrific 
crescendos,  sudden  commas  before  some  great  chord,  though 
we  had  never  done  this  before.'" 

In  this  connection  I  am  tempted  to  venture  a  speculation 
which  may  be  utterly  valueless,  but  which  may  be  found  to 
link  in  with  later  knowledge. 

In  the  biography  called  Theodore  Thomas  (Chicago, 
1905),  II,  25,  the  great  conductor  says  that  in  the  Ride 
and  the  Fire-Music  of  The  Walkiire  there  are  passages  which 


220  Introduction  [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

no  violinist  alone  can  play  up  to  time,  but  which  a  dozen  good 
violinists  playing  together  can.  This  I  accounted  for  by 
reasons  which,  for  the  present  at  least,  are  vague,  but  are 
not  without  analogues  and  supports — that  as  the  interchange 
of  ability  and  diffusion  of  intelligence  appear  to  have  no 
fixed  limits,  and  as  the  intelligence  of  a  dozen  men  cannot 
be  identical,  it  would  be  possible  for  each  telepathically  to 
receive  a  capacity  in  addition  to  his  own  from  others  attempt- 
ing exactly  identical  things  with  himself.  Certainly  this  is 
not  the  only  case  where  each  of  several  working  together  can  do 
more  than  each  can  do  separately.  In  the  higher  psychoses 
there  are  strong  indications  that  twelve  times  one  are  not 
barely  twelve,  but  nearer  twelve  times  twelve.  Instance  the 
telepsychic  powers  of  the  dream  state,  as  we  shall  consider 
them  later. 

This  is  all  very  well,  and  I  don't  altogether  despair  of  its 
being  very  true.  Nevertheless  Thomas  says : 

"  The  intervals  which  one  man  drops  another  will  play,  as 
no  two  players  will  drop  the  same  interval,  and  so  the  general 
effect  is  satisfactory." 

That,  too,  is  all  very  well,  if  failure  in  a  rapid  passage 
means  to  players  of  that  grade  only  the  dropping  of  notes. 
But  I  know  that,  to  at  least  one  amateur,  it  means  the  playing 
of  occasional  wrong  notes,  and  I  have  reason  to  believe  that 
it  means  the  same  to  all  players.  If  that  is  so,  they  would 
not  all  play  the  same  wrong  notes,  but  several  of  them  would 
play  different  and  discordant  notes  at  the  same  time,  of 
which,  to  the  great  leader,  "  the  general  effect "  could  not 
have  been  "  satisfactory/'  Therefore  I  continue  to  hold  my 
theory  that  the  dozen  played  together  correctly  when  no  one 
of  them  could  have  done  it  alone.  Musicians  generally  have 
had  something  of  the  same  experience  in  ensemble  playing — 
of  doing  with  others  what  they  could  not  do  by  themselves. 

This  all  looks  like  telepathy,  which  is  in  part  another  name 
for  sympathy. 

There  was  another  illustration  under  the  eyes  of  almost 
everybody  a  generation  ago : — Planchette  often  writes  what  is 
not  in  the  mind  of  the  person  using  it,  but  is  very  distinctly 
in  the  mind  of  some  other  person  present. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
TELEPATHY  BETWEEN  FOSTER  AND  THE  AUTHOR 

ONE  Sunday  evening  in  the  early  seventies,  my  wife  and  I 
went,  unannounced  and  unknown,  to  see  Foster.  We  did 
not  give  our  names,  but  merely  asked  at  the  door  of  his 
boarding-house  (near  Washington  Square)  if  he  could  see  us. 
That  he  knew  anything  about  us  before  would  be  a  ridiculous 
supposition.  He  did  not  know  my  name,  and  if  he  had 
there  were  then  even  fewer  persons  to  whom  it  meant  any- 
thing than  there  are  now,  and  no  portrait  of  me  had  ever 
been  published. 

We  were  ushered  into  the  second-story  front  room,  an 
ordinary  "sitting-room,"  and  Foster  appeared.  He  was  a 
dark  man  of  about  thirty-five,  rather  coarse  and  heavy,  with 
a  liberal  jowl  and  a  fairly  genial  face,  expressive  rather  of 
interest  in  the  things  of  this  world  than  those  of  any  less 
material  one.  His  eyes  were  dark  and  rather  dreamy. 
Neither  in  temperament  nor  physique  was  he  of  the  "  spirit- 
uality" to  be  expected,  according  to  our  usual  standards, 
in  one  whose  susceptibilities  to  the  hidden  world  were 
evolved  beyond  those  of  men  generally.  Recent  experiences, 
however,  have  tended  to  modify  the  old  notions  regarding  the 
spiritual. 

His  manner  had  nothing  "  professional "  about  it,  but  was 
easy,  natural,  and  sincere.  I  expressed  a  desire  for  a  sitting, 
and  he  invited  us  to  be  seated.  He  sat  by  the  ordinary  parlor 
table  of  that  day,  about  two  feet  by  four,  on  the  side  away 
from  the  windows,  and  we  on  the  other  side,  with  our  backs 
to  them.  There  was  no  machinery,  no  trance,  no  airs  of 
mystery,  none  of  the  "  knockings  "  or  "  table-tippings  "  then 
usually  associated  with  "  spiritual  communications  " — nothing 
outside  of  ordinary  conversation,  except  the  remarkable  sub- 
stance of  the  conversation.  He  merely  reported  to  us  im- 
pressions that  came  into  his  consciousness,  and  told  us  that 
221 


222  Telepathy  between  Foster  and  the  Author  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

he  thought  they  were  put  there  by  "  spirits  "  (the  universal 
and  immemorial  way  of  accounting  for  the  unaccountable), 
but  that  he  had  no  objection  to  our  accounting  for  them  in 
any  way  we  pleased. 

After  the  natural  comments  on  the  object  of  our  visit 
and  the  state  of  the  weather,  he  remarked :  "  Claude  is  here." 
Claude  was  the  name  of  a  baby  we  had  lost  some  seven 
years  before,  and  was  of  course  the  name  most  prominent 
in  our  minds  on  going  to  see  a  "  spirit  medium."  That  he 
should  have  known  that  we  ever  had  such  a  child,  or  anything 
else  about  us,  was  virtually  impossible.  Apparently  he  got 
it  telepathically  from  our  minds.  Soon  he  began  to  declare 
the  presence  of  other  personalities — friends  we  had  lost,  giving 
us  the  names  of  perhaps  a  dozen  in  about  the  order  of  their 
prominence  in  our  minds. 

We  put  questions  mentally.  The  "  spirits' "  answers  always 
were  germane  to  the  questions,  but  were  generally  noncom- 
mittal, and  when  otherwise,  were  wrong  as  often  as  right. 
When  my  father  was  declared  present,  I  said:  "Ask  him  a 
question  I  have  in  mind."  Foster  soon  answered :  "  He  says 
it  is  best  for  you."  My  mental  question  was :  "  Is  my  way 
of  life  satisfactory  to  you  ?  " 

Soon  after  graduation  I  had  lost  a  college  friend  who  was 
perhaps  the  best  endowed  person  of  his  age  I  have  known, 
and  who  left  behind  him  some  unpublished  MSS.  In  time 
Foster  announced :  "  Sextus  is  here."  I  said :  "  Please  get 
from  him  an  answer  to  my  mental  question." 

Foster  said :  "  I'll  try.  Keep  your  mind  on  it  as  closely 
as  you  can." 

It  is  well  to  note  here  that  while  some  mediums  invite 
concentration,  others  are  confused  by  the  sitter's  letting 
his  mind  dwell  on  anything:  they  want  it  kept  as  nearly 
as  possible  a  tabula  rasa.  We  shall  meet  illustrations 
later.  Foster,  on  the  contrary,  said  to  me  several  times: 
"  Your  mind  is  wandering.  Concentrate  it  on  the  question ; 
help  me  all  you  can."  At  last  he  popped  out:  "He  says, 
*  Publish  every  word  of  them.' "  Now  that  is  the  very  last 
thing  Sextus  would  have  said :  he  was  the  most  modest  of 
men,  and  the  most  apt  to  settle  such  a  question  the  other 
way,  or  depend  on  the  judgment  of  his  friends. 


Ch.  XVI]      Piecing-out  Telepathic  Impressions  223 

Foster  impressed  me  as  sincere,  but  I  don't  think  that  he 
was  able  to  draw  an  exact  line  between  his  "  impressions " 
from  outside,  as  described  to  me,  and  his  own  inventions, 
especially  when  he  felt  the  impulse,  not  unnatural  or  entirely 
inexcusable,  to  show  by  pertinent  answers  that  he  had  re- 
ceived correct  impressions  of  questions  in  the  mind  of  a  sitter. 
His  spiritistic  theory  of  the  origin  of  his  impressions  had 
started  when  it  was  the  fashion  to  seek  answers  to  questions 
through  table  tippings,  and  when  he  found  in  himself  the 
sensibility  to  telepathic  impressions,  it  was  but  a  step  almost 
imperceptible  to  a  person  of  his  lack  of  training,  to  supply 
coherent  answers  to  questions,  whether  he  was  fully  impressed 
with  such  answers  or  not.  I  don't  think  he  intended  to 
misrepresent,  but  simply  did  not  distinguish.  He  probably 
got  the  impression  of  the  question,  and  himself  supplied  the 
answer.  This  he  did  the  more  readily  in  the  exultation  of 
having  caught  the  difficult  question. 

As  Foster  got  farther  and  farther  away  from  our  foremost 
interests,  which  I  assume  most  easily  impressed  his  mind, 
he  began  to  write  instead  of  talking,  saying  that  perhaps  the 
"spirits"  would  guide  his  hand  to  write  better  than  they 
would  communicate  through  speech.  I  think  writing  helped 
him  to  concentrate.  He  wrote  several  scraps  of  paper  which 
are  before  me  now.  These  are  probably  specimens  of  the 
now  widely  known  "  automatic  "  writing. 

One  impression  indicated  on  one  of  these  scraps  is  in 
writing  not  clear,  but  pretty  plainly  seeming  to  be  "  Votre 
grandpere  aux  Fran$ais,  Jean  de  Hass"  Now  I  did  have  a 
grandpere  Francois,  but  never  knew  him,  and  he  was  about 
the  last  person  I  would  have  thought  of.  Moreover,  he  was 
more  than  two  generations  back,  and  his  name  was  De  Hass, 
but  it  was  not  Jean.  At  the  time,  I  did  not  know  what  it 
was,  and,  of  course,  neither  did  Foster — there  being  nothing 
in  my  mind  to  give  him  an  impression.  So  when  he  wanted 
a  Christian  name,  he  seems  to  have  taken,  voluntarily  or 
involuntarily,  the  one  which  is  most  frequent.  This  jumping 
consciously  or  unconsciously  to  the  most  common  names  is 
very  general  among  sensitives. 

Probably  Foster  knew  no  French,  and  I  cannot  find  any 
warrant  for  the  locution  grandpere  aux  Fran^ais  instead  of 


224:  Telepathy  between  Foster  and  the  Author  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

the  natural  grandpere  Francis.  It  surprised  me  at  the  time, 
and  surprises  me  still.  It  is  barely  possible  that  at  some 
time  I  had  got  hold  of  some  such  false  locution,  and  held 
it  subliminally,  and  that  Foster  got  it  from  my  subliminal 
consciousness. 

To  farther  explain  these  unnecessarily  long  words  for  those 
to  whom  they  are  new:  they  are  an  invention  "made  in 
Germany,"  though  in  England  and  America  quite  usually 
attributed  to  Myers,  but  I  never  knew  him  to  claim  it. 

His  first  mention  of  it  that  I  can  find  (in  Pr.  VII  for 
1891-2)  was  five  years  later  than  when  Du  Prel's  Philosophy  of 
Mysticism  showed  it  to  be  common  stock  among  "  the  inevi- 
table Germans."  It  seems  to  have  started  with  Fechner. 
Myers  did  more,  however,  than  any  one  else  to  establish  it 
with  English-speaking  people  as  a  working  hypothesis. 

The  words  are  used  to  distinguish  between  conscious 
thought  and  knowledge,  and  sub-conscious  thought  and  know- 
ledge. Why  folks  did  not  find  these  shorter  and  simpler 
words  good  enough  I  have  not  been  able  to  make  out.  The 
preposition  and  the  root  limen,  or  more  strictly,  limin,  which 
means  "  threshold,"  is  applied  to  a  consciousness  which  seems 
to  exist  under  or  away  from  the  threshold  of  our  daily 
experience. 

There  is  abundant  evidence  of  there  being  within  reach 
of  our  memories  more  than  we  ordinarily  realize — so  much, 
in  fact,  that  some  observers  think  that  every  experience — 
and  possibly  every  ancestral  experience — really  survives  in 
the  subliminal  memory,  and  can  be  awakened  under  extraor- 
dinary conditions,  such  as  hypnotism  and  dreams — and  per- 
haps death.  Some  even  go  so  far  as  to  find  reason  to  believe 
that  each  subliminal  consciousness  is  part  of  an  infinite  con- 
sciousness in  which  our  individual  consciousnesses  merge  and 
communicate  with  each  other  telepathically.  As  we  proceed, 
we  shall  find  more  to  suggest  such  a  theory,  or  rather  to  turn 
its  name  from  a  mere  metaphor  of  locality  into  something 
more  significant. 

The  thing  that  struck  me  as  most  remarkable  at  Foster's 
was  that  as  he  was  telling  me  that  his  impressions  often 
came  to  him  in  visions,  he  exclaimed :  "  I  had  a  strange 
one  then!  I  saw  a  large  oyster-shell  over  your  head,  and 


Ch.  XVI]  Impression  Visualized  225 

from  it  a  pearl  seemed  to  fall  into  your  head/'  Now  my 
father,  who  had  been  dead  fourteen  years,  having  been  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  Baltimore  oyster  industry,  the  pearl 
coming  to  me  from  the  oyster-shell  was  about  as  correct  a 
symbol  for  some  of  my  important  experiences  as  could 
readily  have  been  imagined.  Foster  knew  no  more  about 
this  than  about  the  revenues  of  the  latest  mandarin  in  China. 
Foster  gave  many  illustrations — some  to  me  and  hosts  to 
others — that  his  sensitiveness  was  not  restricted  to  another's 
passing  thoughts,  but  was  apt  to  respond  to  anything  in 
character  and  experience,  without  any  conscious  initiative 
from  the  other ;  and  it  was  highly  characteristic  of  the  dream- 
like action  of  the  "  sensitive "  mind  that  he  should  have 
caught  this  fact  in  my  history  and  made  a  vision  of  it,  just 
as  people  in  general  are  constantly  taking  some  trivial  cir- 
cumstance and  expanding  it  into  a  dream. 

Upon  my  asking  him  how  he  got  such  impressions,  he 
said  substantially: 

"All  I  know  about  it  is  that  they  come  into  my  mind, 
and  sometimes,  like  the  oyster-shell,  seem  to  appear  to  my 
eyes.  I  think  they  are  communicated  to  me  by  spirits,  but 
of  course  you'll  think  what  you  please." 

I  asked :  "  Why,  with  your  power  of  getting  at  secret  things, 
don't  you  learn  the  secrets  of  the  stock-market,  and  make 
yourself  rich  ? "  He  answered :  "  I  feel  that  if  I  were  to 
use  my  strange  powers  to  get  anything  but  a  comfortable 
livelihood,  they  would  be  taken  away."  His  biographer 
records,  however,  that  he  did  receive  a  great  deal  of  money 
in  legitimate  fees,  and  some  in  more  or  less  legitimate  bets 
as  to  what  he  could  do,  but  that  he  was  not  avaricious,  often 
declined  to  take  a  bet  that  he  had  won,  and  let  his  money 
pass  through  his  fingers  like  water. 

For  instance,  Mr.  Bartlett  quotes  (op.  cit.,  p.  99)  from  the 
New  York  Graphic,  October  24,  1874: 

"  One  night  a  total  stranger  to  Foster  called  at  his  rooms 
and  said: 

" '  Foster,  I  don't  believe  in  your  humbug.  Now,  you  never 
saw  or  heard  of  me,  and  I  will  bet  you  twenty  dollars  that  you 
can't  tell  my  name.  I  do  it  to  test  you.' 

" '  T-w-e-n-t-y  d-o-M-a-r-s,'  repeated  Foster;  'twenty  dollars 
that  I  can't  tell  your  name?  Well,  sir  (putting  his  hand  to  his 


226  Telepathy  between  Foster  and  the  Auth(fr  [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

brow),  the  spirit  of  your  brother  Clement  tells  me  that  your 
name  is  Alexander  B.  Corcorane.' 

"  Mr.  Corcorane  was  astonished,  and  took  out  his  money  to 
pay  the  medium,  who  pushed  it  back  with  a  laugh." 

Of  course  he  could  have  read  both  names  from  the  visitor's 
mind. 

Foster  did  not  tell  me  that  he  felt  that  his  powers  would 
be  taken  away  if  he  used  them  to  obtain  anything  for  which 
he  did  not  give  an  equivalent;  but  that  was  probably  what 
he  meant.  He  was  not  a  person  of  the  high  education  that 
seems  necessary  to  enable  most  people  to  say  very  exactly 
what  they  mean.  In  fact  my  recollection  seems  to  be  that 
he  was  not  very  sure  to  say  what  he  meant  even  grammatically. 

The  conclusions  established  in  me  by  the  interview  were 
that  it  could  not  be  accounted  for  without  the  hypothesis 
of  thought-transference,  as  it  was  called  then — telepathy,  as 
it  is  called  now;  and  that  there  was  nothing  correct  in  it 
which  could  not  be  accounted  for  by  that  hypothesis.  He 
told  me  nothing  important  or  verifiable  which  I  did  not  know 
before,  but  the  things  he  did  tell  me,  he  could  not  have 
known  without  absorbing  impressions  from  my  mind  or 
from  other  incarnate  minds  or  from  the  "  spirits." 

His  impressions  had  all  the  clearness  and  all  the  vagueness 
of  dreams — from  exact  names  to  the  (to  him)  meaningless 
vision  of  the  oyster  shell  and  the  pearl. 

Myers  has  marked  the  difference  between  a  mental  impres- 
sion and  what  might  be  called  a  sensory  vision,  like  the  pearl 
oyster,  by  the  two  words  telepathy  and  telesthesia.  Though 
perhaps  he  would  confine  telesthesia  to  a  vision  of  an  actual 
thing  or  circumstance.  Of  course  all  such  things  merge 
into  each  other  as  pretty  much  everything  does  into  every- 
thing else — a  fact  to  which  I  have  called  attention 
probably  often  enough  to  tax  your  patience.  The  first  two 
or  three  times  I  did  it  merely  as  a  matter  of  general  scientific 
interest ;  but  as  I  have  progressed,  I  have  been  impelled  to  do 
it  more  by  fumbling  against  a  vague  suggestion  of  something ; 
and  as  I  have  groped  along,  this  something  seems  to  become 
more  definite  and  pervasive,  until  now  it  begins  to  look  like 
a  clue  running  through  the  whole  subject,  and  leading  by  a 
new  route  to  a  better  standpoint  for  looking  through  its  vistas 


Ch.  XVI]    Telepathy  Basis  of  Various  Manifestations    227 

than  (so  far  as  I  know)  has  so  far  been  realized.  Perhaps  we 
shall  reach  it  definitely  in  due  course. 

Foster's  explanation  of  the  "  spirits  "  had  been  the  general 
explanation  for  the  mysterious  during  all  previous  history; 
and  at  his  time  many  scouted  telepathy  as  a  less  probable 
hypothesis.  In  fact  telepathy  was  then  scouted  in  favor  of 
fraud  by  many — probably  most — of  such  people  as  are  now 
crying  it  up  as  against  spiritism. 

Although  in  those  days  Foster  was  called  a  "spiritual 
medium,"  so  was  everybody  else  who  did  anything  unex- 
plainable.  Under  the  discriminations  of  to-day,  Foster  as 
I  saw  him,  would  not  be  regarded  as  a  spiritual  medium  at 
all.  He  was,  so  far  as  I  observed  him,  merely  a  telepathic 
sensitive.  He  did  not  profess  to  me  that  his  body  was 
used  as  a  medium  by  another  spirit.  His  own  spirit  was 
in  the  possession  of  it  all  the  while,  and  simply  communi- 
cated to  us  what  he  thought  other  spirits  told  him.  What 
is  to-day  strictly  meant  by  a  spiritual  medium  is  a  person 
whose  spirit  seems  to  relinquish  the  body  for  the  use  of 
another  spirit,  who  uses  it  to  write  and  articulate,  and  by 
so  doing  generally  expresses  an  alleged  personality  entirely 
distinct,  perhaps  in  point  of  age  and  even  of  sex,  from  the 
medium's  waking  self.  But  we  are  going  to  meet  evidence 
that  Foster  manifested  these  phenomena  too.  We  shall  find 
reason  to  regard  them  as  in  some  respects  quite  different  from 
what  they  seem. 

Many  years  after  I  sat  with  Foster,  I  left  a  sitting  with 
Mrs.  Piper  more  deeply,  if  possible,  under  the  same  im- 
pression of  telepathy  than  I  was  when  I  left  Foster.  But 
there  were  additional  features  in  her  case  that  have  since 
inclined  me  toward  additional  convictions.  I  will  be  more 
specific  after  we  have  been  over  the  phenomena. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
SOME  EARLY  TELEPATHIC  SENSITIVES 

I  HAVE  introduced  telepsychosis,  as  I  introduced  telekinesis, 
by  a  personal  experience  because,  as  between  my  readers  and 
me,  it  is  more  direct  than  an  experience  from  a  third  person. 
But  in  the  former  case  I  began  with  the  simplest  sort  of 
illustration  of  the  subject,  while  in  the  present  case  I  have 
subordinated  simplicity  to  the  other  consideration. 

Yet  so  many  people  have  read  of  telepsychic  experiences  of 
many  kinds;  in  fact,  so  many  people  have  known  of,  and 
even  experienced  them,  that  any  illustrations  at  all  sometimes 
seem  almost  superfluous.  But  the  experiences  are  as  yet  so 
little  correlated  with  established  knowledge  that  few  people, 
if  any,  profess  to  "  understand "  them  to  any  extent,  and 
therefore  more  illustrations  may  be  worth  while  to  stimulate 
your  guesses  as  well  as  to  explain  other  guesses,  including 
my  own. 

Moreover,  next  to  the  question  of  survival  of  death,  and 
strongly  bearing  upon  it,  this  subject  of  telepathy,  or  telesthe- 
sia,  has  turned  out  to  be  far  the  most  important  with  which  the 
S.  P.  R.  has  had  to  deal.  It  seems  to  pervade  nearly  all 
superusual  psychic  phenomena,  and  it  is  therefore  well  to 
trace  it  from  even  earlier  than  the  beginning  of  scientific 
examination. 

There  have  been  many  attempts  to  make  the  recent  mani- 
festations, beginning  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  of 
a  piece  with  manifestations  going  as  far  back  as  history. 
There  are  at  least  two  pretty  clear  differences.  Most  of  the 
early  manifestations  were  associated  with  pathological  condi- 
tions and  religious  ecstasy.  The  recent  ones  are  generally  free 
from  the  first,  and  those  as  late  as  the  contemporary  S.  P.  R. 
records,  are  free  from  the  second.  Indeed,  while  the  compar- 
atively illiterate  spiritualism  of  the  American  outbreak  had 
religious  associations,  it  had  few  religious  ecstasies.  The 


Ch.  XVII]  Swedenborg  229 

manifestations  were  generally  normal,  the  earlier  ones  seem  to 
have  been  generally  abnormal. 

There  seems  then  a  good  deal  of  warrant  for  assuming  that 
the  recent  phenomena  come  in  the  natural  course  of  evolution, 
while  the  earlier  phenomena  may  have  been  precocious,  and 
therefore  unsubstantial. 

The  reader  who  cares  for  a  more  complete  and  detailed 
account  than  I  have  space  for  of  these  subjects  previous  to 
the  foundation  of  the  S.  P.  R.,  will  find  the  best  I  know  in 
Podmore's  Modern  Spiritualism  (1902).  But  admirable  as 
it  was  at  the  time,  in  the  light  of  later  knowledge  much  of 
it  reads  like  the  old  disproofs  of  the  possibility  of  a  locomotive 
moving  over  twenty  miles  an  hour,  or  of  more  than  one  electric 
light  on  a  circuit. 

The  earliest  celebrated  sensitive  in  the  modern  world  was 
Swedenborg.  His  case  of  course  received  little  general  atten- 
tion before  the  movement  of  which  one  symptom  was  the 
foundation  of  the  S.  P.  R.  Nevertheless,  the  case  had  attracted 
the  investigation  and  confidence  of  so  great  a  man  as  Kant, 
who  vouches  for  it,  expressing  himself  as  follows  in  a  letter 
reprinted  as  Appendix  II  in  his  Dreams  of  a  Ghost-seer  (Goer- 
witz's  translation,  London,  1900)  : 

"In  the  year  1759,  towards  the  end  of  July,  on  Saturday, 
at  four  o'clock  P.M.,  Swedenborg  arrived  at  Gottenburg  from 
England,  when  Mr.  William  Castel  invited  him  to  his  house, 
together  with  a  party  of  fifteen  persons.  About  six  o'clock 
Swedenborg  went  out,  and  returned  to  the  company  quite  pale 
and  alarmed.  He  said  that  a  dangerous  fire  had  just  broken 
out  in  Stockholm,  in  the  Sodermalm  (Gottenburg  is  about  three 
hundred  miles  from  Stockholm),  and  that  it  was  spreading  very 
fast  He  was  restless  and  went  out  often.  Ke  said  that  the 
house  of  one  of  his  friends,  whom  he  named,  was  already  in 
ashes,  and  that  his  own  was  in  danger.  At  eight  o'clock,  after 
he  had  been  out  again,  he  joyfully  exclaimed,  '  Thank  God,  the 
fire  is  extinguished  the  third  door  from  my  house.' . . .  On 
Monday  evening,  a  messenger  arrived  at  Gottenburg,  who  was 
despatched  by  the  Board  of  Trade  during  the  time  of  the  fire. 
In  the  letters  brought  by  him  the  fire  was  described  precisely 
in  the  manner  stated  by  Swedenborg." 

This  may  have  been  pure  telepathy  from  the  minds  of 
witnesses  in  Stockholm,  or  it  may  have  been  telopsis  (clair- 
voyance) . 


230         Some  Early  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 
Kant  also  said  on  another  subject  (op.  cit.,  pp.  17-18) : 

"  Madame  Marteville,  the  widow  of  the  Dutch  ambassador 
in  Stockholm,  some  time  after  the  death  of  her  husband,  was 
called  upon  by  Croon,  a  goldsmith,  to  pay  for  a  silver  service 
which  her  husband  had  purchased  from  him.  The  widow  was 
convinced  that  her  late  husband  had  been  much  too  precise 
and  orderly  not  to  have  paid  this  debt,  yet  she  was  unable  to 

find    the    receipt She    requested    Mr.    Swedenborg . . .  that 

if,  as  all  people  said,  he  possessed  the  extraordinary  gift  of 
conversing  with  the  souls  of  the  departed,  he  would  perhaps 
have  the  kindness  to  ask  her  husband  how  it  was  about  the 
silver  service.  Swedenborg  did  not  at  all  object  to  complying 
with  her  request.  Three  days  afterward  the  said  lady  had  com- 
pany at  her  house  for  coffee.  Swedenborg  called,  and  in  his  cool 
way  informed  her  that  he  had  conversed  with  her  husband.  The 
debt  had  been  paid  several  months  before  his  decease,  and  the 
receipt  was  in  a  bureau  in  the  room  upstairs . . .  that  her  hus- 
band had  described  to  him  how,  after  pulling  out  the  left- 
hand  drawer  a  board  would  appear  which  would  be  required 
to  be  drawn  out,  when  a  secret  compartment  would  be  disclosed, 
containing  his  private  Dutch  correspondence,  as  well  as  the 
receipt.  Upon  hearing  this  description  the  whole  company 
arose  and  accompanied  the  lady  into  the  room  upstairs  . . .  and, 
to  the  great  astonishment  of  all,  the  papers  were  discovered 
there,  in  accordance  with  his  description." 

This,  if  telepathy,  apparently  could  have  been  only  from 
the  mind  of  Marteville  surviving  bodily  death,  though  there 
is  a  faint  probability  that  some  living  person  knew  it.  The 
only  remaining  hypotheses  are  that  it  was  telopsis,  or  that  we 
don't  know. 

As  Podmore,  and  I  dare  say  others,  point  out  (Modern 
Spiritualism,  I,  15)  : 

"  The  idea  of  intercourse  with  distinctively  human  spirits,  if 
not  actually  introduced  by  Swedenborg,  at  least  established  itself 

first  in  the  popular  consciousness  through  his  teaching For 

him  there  was  no  gulf  fixed  between  this  earthly  life  and  that 
which  he  believed  to  lie  beyond  death.  The  great  principle  of 
continuity  is  preserved;  Nature  makes  no  leap,  even  over  the 
grave,  and  heaven  and  hell  are  seen  in  his  prosaic  pages  to  be 
much  like  Stockholm  or  London." 

Which  latter  fact  is,  with  me  at  least,  an  argument,  pro 
tanto,  for  the  genuineness  of  his  heaven  at  least. 


Ch.  XVII]    Hudson  Tuttle.     Thomas  L.  Harris  231 

Among  the  earlier  uninvestigated  cases  of  telepsychosis  is 
that  of  Hudson  Tuttle,  an  untutored  country  boy  on  the 
Erie  shore  of  Ohio,  who,  in  the  early  fifties,  at  the  age  of 
sixteen,  without  books  at  hand,  wrote  a  fairly  correct  outline 
in  fairly  correct  language  of  what  was  then  known  of  the 
evolution  of  the  planet  and  the  life  and  thought  upon  it. 
This  he  of  course  supposed  to  be  expressed  through  him  by 
spirits  (Tuttle,  Hudson:  The  Arcana  of  Nature.  Latest 
edition  edited  by  Densmore.  New  York  (date  not  given) : 
copyrighted  in  1909). 

About  the  same  time,  probably  a  little  earlier,  Andrew 
Jackson  Davis,  "the  Poughkeepsie  Seer,"  also  uneducated, 
wrote  a  similar  work,  Nature's  Divine  Revelations,  and  later 
The  Great  Harmonia,  and  half  a  score  of  others,  in  trance, 
at  first  brought  on  by  hypnosis  and  later  by  auto-suggestion. 

In  March,  1846,  Davis  gave  a  description  of  an  eighth 
planet  as  yet  unseen,  with  a  "  density  four-fifths  of  water  " ; 
and  in  the  following  September  Neptune  was  discovered,  with 
about  that  density.  Davis  said  some  other  things,  however, 
absurd  on  their  faces :  so  the  planet  seems  a  coincidence.  But 
he  also  declared  a  communion  between  incarnate  and  post- 
carnate  spirits  that  would  soon  be  abundantly  manifested. 
Anybody  who  wants  to,  can  of  course  apply  this  to  the  develop- 
ments in  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.  For  much  of  this  I  am  indebted  to 
Podmore,  Modern  Spiritualism,  1, 163.  His  account  of  Davis 
is  very  interesting. 

Of  course  both  these  men  thought  their  writings  inspired 
by  spirits. 

There  were  many  other  writing  mediums  at  the  same  epoch. 

A  young  ex-blacksmith,  named  Charles  Lmton,  in  1853 
wrote  heteromatically  a  religious  rhapsody  called  The  Healing 
of  the  Nations,  which  was  well  up  to  the  standard  of  the 
educated  pulpit;  and  there  were  several  other  performances 
of  the  kind,  some  of  them  in  verse,  or  alleged  verse,  generally, 
but  not  invariably,  very  bad.  Thomas  L.  Harris's  were  al- 
most endurable.  Virtually  all  the  stuff,  however,  was  made 
of  echoes,  and  a  little  of  it  of  direct  but  perhaps  involuntary 
telepathic  plagiarism,  or  (even  Podmore,  from  whom  I  have 
taken  some  of  this  edifying  information,  virtually  admits) 
possibly  telopsis. 


232         Some  Early  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

These  cases,  like  others  before  the  overwhelming  accumu- 
lation of  scientifically  sifted  evidence  by  the  S.  P.  R.,  at- 
tracted hardly  any  notice  in  the  educated  world,  but  now  one 
can,  without  fear  of  ridicule,  mention  them  as  worth  attention. 

The  books  of  these  authors  and  their  fellows  contain  many 
quotations  from  works  which  the  authors  profess  never  to 
have  seen  except  teloptically ;  and  it  is  hard  to  account  for 
the  existence  of  their  books  on  any  other  hypothesis  than 
teloteropathy  and  telopsis,  unless  it  be  that  of  fraud,  which 
is  now  out  of  date  and  not  countenanced  by  the  circumstances. 

Tuttle  and  Davis,  in  the  frequent  enjoyment  of  what 
Davis  called  "  the  superior  state,"  both  lived  to  be  old  men, 
and  I  believe  very  good  old  men,  and  were  alleged  to  be 
useful  in  diagnosing  and  prescribing  for  disease,  and  certainly 
were  useful  in  raising  above  the  hewing  of  wood  and  drawing 
of  water  the  thoughts  of  many  people  who  believed  the 
lectures  of  these  seers  inspired  by  superhuman  wisdom. 

There  is  little  room  for  doubt  that  they  did  telepsychically 
absorb  much  that  people  generally  have  to  attain  by  effort, 
and  that,  without  any  of  what  is  ordinarily  called  education, 
they  grew  into  the  possession  of  a  mass  of  irregular  know- 
ledge which,  eked  out  by  the  vocabulary  that  came  with  it, 
led  a  large  number  of  disciples  to  believe  themselves  "getting 
somewhere  " ;  and  probably  they  were,  as  compared  with  where 
they  would  have  got  without  these  teachers.  I  have  had  a 
little — very  little — correspondence  with  this  order  of  "  spirit- 
ualists," and  find  them  exceptionally  good  and  kindly  people. 
No  more  so,  however,  than  that  arch  skeptic  who  has  no 
belief  whatever  in  Foster's  "  spirits,"  but  implicitly  believes 
in  the  man,  and  wrote  his  life. 

A  word  was  said  about  our  American  seers  diagnosing 
diseases.  Davis  at  least  did.  Probably  the  telopsis  which 
went  to  the  pages  of  remote  books  went  into  the  organs  of 
the  body.  Much  matter  regarding  this,  on  the  part  of  many 
people,  has  been  gathered,  and  I  shall  have  a  word  to  say 
about  it  later.  It  may  have  big  possibilities. 

I  have  taken  most  of  the  foregoing  data  regarding  Tuttle 
and  Davis  from  Densmore's  Introduction  to  Tuttle's  Arcana. 
He  also  gives  there  an  account  of  Mrs.  Richmond,  whose  works 
and  biography  by  Barrett  I  possess,  but  do  not  care  to  quote 


Ch.  XVII]  Mrs.  Richmond  233 

from,  as  all  the  space  I  can  spare  will  be  better  filled  by 
Densmore's  account  of  her  in  his  same  introduction  to  Turtle 
(op.  tit.,  p.  65) : 

"  Mrs.  Cora  L.  V.  Richmond  (nee  Scott)  was  born  in  1840, 
near  Cuba,  Allegany  County,  N.  Y."  [The  region  from  the 
Hudson  to  a  few  hundred  miles  west  was  the  cradle  of  the 
mid-century  "  spiritualism."  H.  H.]  "  Her  father,  David  W. 
Scott,  was  a  mathematician  and  inclined  to  philosophic  studies. 
Her  mother,  Lodensy  Butterfield,  had  psychic  gifts. . . .  When 
eleven  years  of  age  she  was  asked  to  prepare  a  composition  and 
took  her  slate  and  pencil  into  an  arbor  in  the  garden,  expecting 
first  to  write  the  essay  on  the  slate  and  then  copy  it  on  paper. 
In  a  little  while  she  took  the  slate  to  her  mother,  saying  she 
had  fallen  asleep  and  somebody  had  been  writing  on  her  slate. 
The  writing  began :  '  My  dear  sister/  and  was  from  a  sister 
of  Mrs.  Scott  who  had  passed  away  in  childhood.  A  few  days 
later  Cora  was  seated  at  the  feet  of  her  mother,  when  sleep 
again  overtook  her,  and  the  mother,  thinking  she  had  fainted, 
applied  restoratives.  Noticing  a  trembling  motion  of  the  hand, 
she  placed  the  slate  and  pencil  in  the  child's  hand,  which  imme- 
diately began  to  write.  In  this  way  several  messages,  signed 
by  different  members  of  the  family  who  had  gone  to  spirit  life, 
were  written,  each  of  them  testifying  to  their  existence  in  an- 
other sphere 

"  A  few  months  after  the  first  writing  on  the  slate,  Cora  was 
controlled  by  what  purported  to  be  the  spirit  of  a  German 
physician,  but  who  withheld  his  name.  For  some  four  years 
the  German  physician,  at  a  given  hour  every  day,  controlled 
Cora  to  diagnose  and  give  medical  advice  to  those  who  came 
to  her  father's  house  for  that  purpose.  This  occupied  two, 
three,  and  sometimes  six  hours  a  day.  Under  the  direction  of 
this  physician  she  dressed  wounds,  and  sometimes  performed 
minor  surgical  operations.  Cora  had  no  knowledge  of  any  other 
language  than  English,  but  the  influence  controlling  her  some- 
times spoke  through  her  in  German.  From  the  beginning  of 
her  mediumship.  it  was  stated  through  the  child  that  her  mission 
was  to  be  a  public  speaker,  and  that  her  efforts  in  the  art  of 
healing  were  experiences  to  fit  her  for  her  lifework. 

"  It  was  not  until  she  was  fifteen  that  she  began  to  give 
lectures  before  large  audiences/' 

This  is  plainly  the  dream  state  as  known  to  all  who  dream 
at  all,  but  as  highly  developed  among  the  mediums. 

Mrs.  Richmond  has  spoken  to  large  assemblies  of  spiritual- 
ists in  America  and  England,  and  is,  or  was  until  lately, 
minister  to  a  large  congregation  of  them  in  Chicago.  I  have 


234         Some  Early  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

read  some  of  her  discourses,  which  seem  at  about  the  usual 
pulpit  level,  with  more  than  the  usual  liberality. 

In  the  same  connection,  Densmore  gave  some  account  of 
Colville,  which  is  doubly  worth  quoting  from  because  its  last 
episode — the  voyage — is  not  in  print  elsewhere,  even  in  the 
books  by  Colville  from  which  Densmore  takes  most  of  his 
material. 

"  W.  J.  Colville  was  born  in  England  in  1860.  The  following 
facts  of  his  life  are  gleaned  from  a  recently  published  auto- 
biography : 

"  My  mediumship  originally  declared  itself  in  early  chil- 
hood.  I  was  practically  an  orphan  from  birth 

"  How  I  first  came  to  see  my  mother  clairvoyantly  I  do  not 
know,  but  I  distinctly  remember  becoming  conscious,  at  fre- 
quent intervals,  of  the  gentle,  loving  presence  of  a  beautiful 
young  woman,  who  invariably  appeared  to  my  vision  attired 
in  garments  of  singular  beauty 

"  I  was  first  led  to  realize  the  unusual  character  of  my  vision 
when  I  mentioned  the  presence  of  the  '  beautiful  lady  in  white ' 
to  two  persons  who  were  with  me.  I  saw  her  very  distinctly, 
yet  they  declared  that  we  three  were  the  only  occupants  of  the 
apartment.  The  mystery  of  the  fourth  inmate  was  for  me 
greatly  intensified,  when  it  appeared  to  me  that  the  other  two 
persons,  besides  her  and  myself,  could  pass  through  her  and  she 
through  them,  while  they  appeared  completely  unconscious  of 

each  other's  presence The  second  evidence  of  clairvoyance 

did  not  refer  to  sight,  as  ordinarily  understood,  but  to  mental 
enlightenment,  and  this  not  only  of  a  general  but  of  a  par- 
ticular character,  going  deeply  and  precisely  into  manifold  de- 
tails of  private  family  history,  and  including  many  revelations 
which  brought  consternation  to  the  hearers  when  I  reported  my 
experiences.  The  people  among  whom  I  was  being  reared  were 
desirous  of  hiding  from  me  many  facts  concerning  my  parents 
of  which  my  spirit  mother  evidently  wished  me  to  become 
aware." 

All  the  preceding  matter  was  in  the  minds  of  the  family 
and  may  have  been  caught  by  the  child  telepathically.  An 
exception  should  be  made  of  the  mother's  dress.  This  was 
an  elaboration  of  the  original  data,  such  as  is  generally  made 
in  dreams.  Even  what  follows  is  not  necessarily  prophecy 
or  even  telopsis:  the  aunt  knew  her  own  room  and  her  own 
bonnet  strings.  That  is  the  sort  of  difficulty  with  telopsis 
generally. 


Ch.  XVII]  W .  J.  Colville  235 

"  The  third  feature  in  my  clairvoyance  was  the  actual  pre- 
dicting of  coming  events A  single  example  will  illustrate : 

My  grandmother's  sister  in  Lincolnshire  had  decided  to  visit 
Sussex,  but  had  not  communicated  her  intention  to  any  one, 
although  her  mind  was  fully  made  up.  I  had  never  seen  my 
great-aunt,  and  had  rarely  heard  her  mentioned,  yet  I  distinctly 
saw  her  in  the  house  where  I  was  then  living,  and  accurately 
described  her  appearance,  even  to  the  strings  of  the  cap  which 
she  wore  when,  a  few  days  later,  she  paid  her  sister  a  visit." 

What  follows  looks  like  telopsis,  but  it  may  have  been 
telepathy  from  those  who  had  read  the  novel. 

Page  81.  "I  was  in  Perth,  West  Australia,  in  1896,  when 
Marie  Corelli's  novel,  The  Treasure  of  Heaven,  A  Romance  of 
Riches,  reached  Australian  shores.  The  book  had  been  widely 
advertised  before  its  arrival,  and  a  committee  of  arrangements 
had  secured  my  consent  to  include  a  review  of  that  book  in  a 

course  of  lectures  I  was  then  delivering  in  the  Town  Hall 

To  my  consternation  I  could  not  get  hold  of  a  copy  until  the 
evening  on  which  I  was  to  speak,  and  as  the  book  contained 
nearly  five  hundred  pages  I  gave  up  hope  of  reviewing  it  in 
my  lecture  and  decided  to  treat  the  topic  from  my  own  stand- 
point, merely  mentioning  the  fact  that  Marie  Corelli's  novel  had 

just  reached  the  city At  the  close  of  the  lecture  I   was 

personally  congratulated  upon  my  exhaustive  review  of  the 
entire  story  and . . .  told  that  I  had  quoted  passage  after  passage, 
in  almost  the  exact  words  of  the  author,  and  had  given  a  full 

synopsis  of  the  entire  tale 1  have   often  had  experiences 

similar  to  the  above  and  am  therefore  fully  assured  that  it  is 
quite  possible  to  speak  intelligently  upon  matters  with  which 
in  my  ordinary  state  I  have  merely  the  most  superficial  ac- 
quaintance  n 

But  now  we  come  to  something  for  which,  as  far  as  I 
can  see,  we  must  wait  for  a  correlation  with  anything  we  know. 

"  One  night  in  February,  1906 ...  I  beheld  in  the  air  of  the 
room  the  vision  of  a  large  ocean  steamship  and,  near  it,  the 
date  March  29th.  Not  having  the  least  idea  that  the  vision 
concerned  me  individually,  I  took  it  for  granted  that  some  of 
the  other  members  of  the  party  were  about  to  take  an  un- 
expected trip  across  the  Atlantic T  was  impressed  to  try 

my  hand  at  automatic  writing The  writing  ceased  sud- 
denly and  I  felt  no  inclination  . . .  even  to  read  what  had  been 

written    until   the   following   morning Next   day   I   found 

written  . . .  the  substance  of  what  here  follows :  '  Your  friends 
in  Australia  have  decided  to  request  you  to  leave  San  Francisco 
on  the  Oceanic  steamer  Sierra,  due  to  sail  March  29th.  You 


236         Some  Early  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

must  and  will  go  then.  There  are  several  grave  reasons  for 
your  so  doing.  Among  them  an  event  of  great  importance 
in  California,  the  details  of  which  you  will  learn  in  due  season. 
This  is  an  important  crisis  in  your  life,  and  when  you  realize 
all  it  signifies  you  will  indeed  know  that  unseen  watchers  guard 
diligently  your  pathway.'  No  name  was  signed . . .  except  the 
cryptic  signature,  '  One  who  knows.' 

" Within  a  few  weeks  I  received  a  letter  from  the  editor 

of  a  magazine  in  Sydney,  urging  me  to  comply  with  the  request 
of  a  committee  of  friends ...  to  leave  San  Francisco,  March 
29th,  on  the  Sierra" 

This,  then,  was  telepathy !    Colville  continues : 

"  The  second  portion  of  the  writing  I  did  indeed  soon  come 
to  understand.  Reaching  Sydney  April  19th,  1906,  passengers 
and  crew  were  shocked  by  the  awful  tidings  of  earthquake  and 
fire  in  San  Francisco 

"I  have  often  been  asked  to  describe  the  difference  between 
telepathic  and  spiritual  messages. ...  It  is  almost  impossible 
to  discriminate  between  a  message  received  from  a  communi- 
cant on  earth  and  from  one  who  has  passed  to  the  other  side 
of  existence.  What,  indeed,  is  that  '  other  side '  but  the  side 
to  which  telepathy  is  indigenous?  And  can  we  afford  to  be 
sure  that  when  we  are  functioning  telepathically  we  are  not 
behaving  just  as  we  should  continue  to  behave  were  we  sud- 
denly divested  of  our  material  envelopes  ? 

"  Now  that  I  have  rounded  out  nearly  thirty  years  of  public 
service,  I  feel  it  a  solemn  duty,  as  well  as  a  high  privilege,  to 
bear  unequivocal  testimony  to  the  always  beneficial  effect  which 
mediumship  has  had  on  me  from  all  standpoints.  Mentally  and 
physically  I  owe  much  to  those  very  endowments  and  experi- 
ences which  mistaken  people  imagine  are  weakening  to  mind 
and  body." 

There  is  a  strange  incongruity  in  the  psychic  material 
which  mediums  get.  The  reader  perhaps  marveling  at  the 
smooth  diction,  ample  vocabulary,  and  sound  sense  of  what 
he  may  be  perusing  from  an  unlettered  medium,  is  suddenly 
dumped  into  a  passage  conspicuously  lacking  in  some  one 
of  those  qualities,  or  perhaps  all.  These  people  for  a  time 
show  results  that  ordinarily  can  be  attained  only  by  educa- 
tion, and  then  show  a  lack  of  them.  It  seems  as  if,  in  the 
first  cases,  they  have  teloteropathically  received  the  results  of 
somebody's  education,  and  that,  in  the  other  cases,  they  are 
either  teloteropathically  representing  another  order  of  mind, 


Ch.  XVII]     "  Analysis  "  in  Tuttle's  "  Psychic  Science  "    237 

or  perhaps  expressing  their  own.  But  whatever  the  inter- 
pretation of  it,  whatever  portion  of  it  is  deliberately  invented 
fraud,  whatever  its  neglect  hitherto  by  scholars,  in  view  of 
much  similar  matter  that  has  lately  passed  scientific  scrutiny, 
I  am  satisfied  that  much  of  the  humbler  "spiritualistic" 
literature  is  sincere,  results  from  spontaneous  telepsychoses, 
is  outside  of  and  often  in  advance  of  general  experience,  opens 
up  a  new  and  promising  range  of  mind,  and  is  therefore 
worthy  of  careful  study.  Let  all  this  be  illustrated  by  a  few 
passages. 

Here  is  the  "Analysis"  serving  as  preface  to  Tuttle's 
Psychic  Science  (Chicago,  1895)  : 

"  There  is  a  Psychic  Ether,  related  to  thought,  as  the  luminif- 
erous  ether  is  to  light. 

"  This  may  be  regarded  as  the  thought  atmosphere  of  the 
universe.  A  thinking  being  in  this  atmosphere  is  a  pulsating 
center  of  thought-waves,  as  a  luminous  body  is  of  light. 

"  There  is  a  state  of  mind  and  body  known  as  sensitive,  or 
impressible,  in  which  it  receives  impressions  from  other  minds. 
This  state  may  be  normal,  or  induced  by  fatigue,  disease,  drugs, 
or  arise  in  sleep.  The  facts  of  clairvoyance,  trance,  somnambu- 
lism, and  psychometry  prove  the  existence  of  this  ether,  and 
are  correlated  to  [with?  H.  H.]  it. 

"Thought  transference  is  also  in  evidence,  as  well  as  that 
vast  series  of  facts  which  give  intimation  of  an  intelligence 
surviving  the  death  of  the  physical  body. 

"  This  sensitiveness  may  be  exceedingly  acute,  and  the  in- 
dividual unconscious  of  it,  and  then  it  is  known  as  genius, 
which  is  acute  susceptibility  to  the  waves  of  the  psychic  at- 
mosphere." 

All  this  might  have  been  written  by  any  leader  of  the 
S.  P.  R.  From  it  we  tumble  into  the  middle  ages,  tautology, 
and  bombast. 

"  Sensitiveness  explains  the  true  philosophy  of  prayer. 

"  All  the  so-called  occult  phenomena  of  mesmerism,  trance, 
clairvoyance,  mind-reading,  dreams,  visions,  thought  transfer- 
ence, etc.,  are  correlated  to  and  explained  by  means  of  this 
psychic  ether. 

"  All  these  phenomena  lead  up  to  the  consideration  of  im- 
mortality, which  is  a  natural  state,  the  birthright  of  every 
human  being." 

Next  we  have  what  may  have  been  an  accidental  vague 


238         Some  Early  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

generality,  with  possible  meanings  not  at  all  realized  by  the 
person  expressing  it,  or  it  may  have  included  many  of  the 
profound  suggestions  I  have  quoted  from  Professors  Cope, 
Holmes,  and  others. 

"  The  body  and  spirit  are  originated  and  sustained  together, 
and  death  is  their  final  separation." 

Then  comes  in  a  sentence  which  reads  like  Spencer,  and 
may  be  as  profound  as  Boole,  but  which  so  far  as  I  can  fathom 
it  seems  like  nonsense. 

"  The  problem  of  an  immortal  future,  beginning  in  time,  is 
solved  by  the  resolution  of  forces  at  first  acting  in  straight 
lines,  through  spirals  reaching  circles  which,  returning  within 
themselves,  become  individualized  and  self-sustaining." 

Next  a  profound  platitude  that  nobody  fully  appreciating 
most  of  his  preceding  matter  would  have  thought  of  writing : 

"  Spiritual  beings  must  originate  and  be  sustained  by  laws 
as  fixed  and  unchanging  as  those  which  govern  the  physical 
world." 

Then  follows: 

"  Sensitiveness  gives  great  pleasures  and  may  give  pain ;  the 
author's  experience  as  a  sensitive,  related,  shows  this." 

Now  this  jumble  of  profundities  and  superficialities,  of 
clear  statement  of  difficult  things,  and  turgid  statement  of 
simple  things,  is  typical  of  the  old-fashioned  spiritual  litera- 
ture, but,  and  here's  an  additional  rub,  also  of  the  latest 
communications  through  Mrs.  Piper,  professing  to  come 
from  some  of  the  best  minds  that  have  lately  been  known  to 
the  educated  world. 

Is  it  not  a  pretty  clear  inference  that  what  comes  from 
them  all  is  a  jumble  from  all  the  minds  going,  including  their 
own,  and  varying  from  single  impressions  all  the  way  up  to 
the  complexes  which  portray  a  soul?  This  need  not  mean, 
though  it  may,  that  what  professes  to  come  from  the  eman- 
cipated spirits  of  Sidgwick,  Myers,  Hodgson,  and  James, 
necessarily  has  any  such  exalted  source:  it  may  come  from 
memories  and  impressions  of  them  in  minds  still  on  earth; 
but  wherever  it  comes  from,  it  comes  in  shape  so  questionable 
that  even  the  early  similar  manifestations,  so  long  neglected, 
ought  not  to  be  neglected  longer. 


Ch.  XVII]     Impressions  of  Franklin  and  Bacon  239 

But  the  early  reports  bring  us  nothing  of  the  dramatic 
character  so  strongly  indicative  of  personality  independent  of 
the  medium,  that  abounds  in  the  S.  P.  R.  reports.  Indeed 
previous  to  Foster  I  find  nothing  like  the  modern  "  possession." 
The  medium  sees  and  reports,  sometimes  with  much  veridicity, 
but  that  is  all :  the  medium  is  not  described  as  impersonating. 
Moreover  I  recall  no  clear  case  of  spontaneous  or  self-induced 
trance  in  normal  persons  prior  to  those  contemporary  with  the 
S.  P.  R.,  but  my  knowledge  and  my  memory  may  be  at  fault 
there.  Of  course  there  are  plenty  of  hysterical  visions  and, 
apparently,  of  telopsis. 

Among  the  early  records,  the  name  of  Benjamin  Franklin 
is  given  as  a  control  much  oftener  than  that  of  anybody  else, 
in  fact  by  almost  if  not  quite  every  medium.  This  suggests 
at  least  the  question  whether,  amid  the  strange  jumble,  there 
may  not  have  been  from  his  powerful  personality — as  power- 
ful perhaps  as  any  that  earth  has  known — something  more 
than  the  mere  impression  which  accounts  of  it  had  made  on 
the  waking  medium.  Podmore  says,  undoubtedly  correctly 
(Modern  Spiritualism,  I,  268)  : 

"  Of  all  the  august  names  which  figure  in  the  *  inspirational ' 
literature  of  the  period,  none,  it  should  be  remarked,  occurs  more 
frequently,  or  is  made  sponsor  for  more  outrageous  nonsense." 

Bacon's  share  of  the  tommyrot  was  nearly  as  great 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
RECENT  TELEPATHIC  SENSITIVES 

IN  the  foregoing  survey  of  the  early  sensitives  I  have  made 
no  attempt  to  classify  their  manifestations,  but  in  going  on  I 
will  try,  so  far  as  the  complexity  of  the  phenomena  permits, 
to  group  them  under  (a)  simple  impressions  apparently  re- 
ceived from  the  sitter;  (b)  visions  similarly  received  (both 
a  and  b  were  illustrated  to  me  by  Foster) ;  (c)  simple  im- 
pressions apparently  received  from  distant  minds;  (d)  visions 
similarly  received;  (e)  impressions  apparently  received  from 
ostensible  intelligences  surviving  death;  (f)  visions  similarly 
received ;  and  (g)  impressions  and  visions  without  any  assign- 
able source. 

Impressions  from  Persons  Present 
The  following  is  from  Stillman  (op.  cit,  I,  183f.) : 

" Mrs.  H.  K.  Brown,  the  wife  of  our  ablest  sculptor 

of  that  day . . .  was,  apart  from  the  peculiar  powers  she  pos- 
sessed, one  of  the  most  remarkable  women  I  have  ever  known, 
both  morally  and  intellectually No  physical  '  manifesta- 
tion '  took  place  in  her  presence,  and  we  never  '  sat '  as  a 
'  circle/  but  her  telepathic  and  thought-reading  powers  in  ordi- 
nary social  intercourse  were  most  surprising. . . .  Bryant,  the 
poet,  assured  me  that  she  had  recounted  to  him  events  in  his 
past  life  not  known  to  any  living  person  except  himself,  and  I 
had,  myself,  the  evidence  that  in  her  presence  there  was  nothing 

in  my  past  life  beyond  her  perception 1  gave  her  one  day 

a  letter  of  Ruskin  without  disclosing  the  authorship,  and  in 
the  course  of  a  long  analysis  she  said  that  the  writer  was  not 
married,  to  which  I  replied  that  in  this  she  was  mistaken,  and 
she  rejoined,  '  Then  he  ought  not  to  be.'  At  that  time  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Ruskin  were,  so  far  as  I  knew,  living  together,  and  no 
rumor  of  their  incompatibility  had  come  about. 

"  Mrs.  Brown  explained  the  possession  of  her  occult  powers 
by  a  voice  in  the  manner  of  Socrates's  demon,  which,  she  said, 
was  always  present  with  her,  and  which  she  recognized  as  en- 
tirely foreign  to  her.  She  repeated  what  she  heard,  word  for 
240 


Ch.  XVIII]    Apparent  "  Possession  "  of  Foster  241 

word  as  the  words  came,  hesitating  and  sometimes  leaving  a 
sentence  incomplete,  not  hearing  the  sequence.  When  she  asked 
who  was  speaking  to  her,  she  received  only  the  reply,  'We  are 
spirit,'  and  no  indication  of  personality  was  ever  offered." 

From  Bartlett  (op.  cit.,  p.  64) : 

"Two  gentlemen  called  on  Mr.  Foster,  and  inquired  if  he 
could  answer  some  questions  in  a  foreign  language.  He  replied 
that  he  had  usually  been  able  to  do  so,  and  if  the  gentlemen 
would  kindly  be  seated  and  write  their  questions  on  slips  of 
paper  [Writing  evidently  helped  concentration.  H.  II.  |.  he 
would  see  what  the  results  would  be.  I  am  quite  sure  that 
the  mental  strain  was  very  severe  on  Mr.  Foster  during  this 
seance,  for  beads  of  perspiration  could  be  seen  on  his  forehead 

frequently He    answered    numerous    questions,    but    in    a 

language  which  he  said  he  had  never  before  spoken. . . .  He 

pronounced    many   of    the   words   with   some    difficulty In 

justice  to  Mr.  Foster,  and  to  show  what  a  wonderful  test  he 
had  given  them,  one  of  the  gentlemen  made  this  explanation: 
Some  years  ago,  he  was  shipwrecked,  and  drifted  to  an  unknown 
island,  where  he  was  treated  kindly  by  the  natives,  and  where 
he  was  compelled  to  remain  for  three  years  before  being  rescued. 
It  was  there  he  learned  this  strange  language.  A  young  native, 
who  was  his  most  intimate  companion,  died  a  few  weeks  before 
he  was  rescued,  and  it  was  the  spirit  of  this  young  man  from 
whom  he  was  supposed  to  have  had  the  communication,  as 
there  was  not  another  man  in  New  York  City,  or  in  any  part 
of  Europe,  who  knew  a  word  of  the  language." 

Bartlett  gives  a  much  more  complicated  case  than  this,  for 
which  I  have  not  space. 

It  now  seems  strange  that  it  should  not  have  occurred  to 
Mr.  Bartlett  that  the  "spirit"  was  the  sitter,  but  his  ex- 
periences were  before  the  world  was  familiar  with  telepathy. 
Apparently,  however,  he  does  not  state  the  explanation  he 
does  give,  as  his  own :  for  elsewhere,  and  in  conversation  with 
me,  he  stubbornly  repudiates  the  spiritistic  hypothesis. 

The  speaking  and  understanding  by  mediums,  of  languages 
which,  in  their  ordinary  state,  they  do  not  understand  at  all, 
is  testified  to  by  a  cloud  of  witnesses,  and  is  one  of  the  very 
strongest  illustrations  of  the  community  of  mind  which  will 
be  found  more  obvious  and  more  suggestive  as  we  proceed. 
Podmorc  (Modern  Spiritualism,  I,  258-59)  quotes  the  follow- 
ing incidents  from  Judge  Edmonds: 


242  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

(P.  258.)  "  '  Some  Polish  gentlemen,  entire  strangers  to  her, 
sought  an  interview  with  Laura  [Miss  Edmonds]  . . .  and  they 
received  answers,  sometimes  in  English  and  sometimes  in  Polish. 
The  English  she  understood,  but  the  other  she  did  not,  though 
they  seemed  to  understand  it  perfectly. 

" '  This  can  be  verified  only  by  Laura's  statement,  for  no  one 
was  present  but  her  and  the  two  gentlemen,  and  they  did  not 
give  their  names.' " 

(P.  259.)  "'The  incident  with  the  Greek  gentleman  was 
this :  He  spoke  broken  English 

"  '  Occasionally,  through  Laura,  the  spirit  would  speak  a  word 
or  a  sentence  in  Greek,  until  Mr.  E.  inquired  if  he  could  be 
understood  if  he  spoke  in  Greek.  The  residue  of  the  conversa- 
tion, for  more  than  an  hour,  was,  on  his  part,  entirely  in  Greek, 
and  on  hers  sometimes  in  Greek  and  sometimes  in  English.  At 
times  Laura  would  not  understand  what  was  the  idea  conveyed, 
either  by  her  or  him.  At  other  times  she  would  understand  him, 
though  he  spoke  in  Greek,  and  herself  when  uttering  Greek 
words. 

" ' My  niece,  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  has  often  sung 

Italian,  improvising  both  words  and  tune,  yet  she  is  entirely  un- 
acquainted with  the  language.  Of  this,  I  suppose,  there  are  a 
hundred  instances. 

" '  One  day  my  daughter  and  niece . . .  began  a  conversation 
with  me  in  Spanish,  one  speaking  a  part  of  a  sentence  and  the 
other  the  residue.  They  were  influenced,  as  I  found,  by  the  spirit 
of  a  person  whom  I  had  known  when  in  Central  America,  and 
reference  was  made  to  many  things  which  had  occurred  to  me 
there,  of  which  I  knew  they  were  as  ignorant  as  they  were  of 
Spanish. 

"  *  To  this  only  we  three  can  testify.' " 

Podmore  gives  many  more  instances.  He  is  of  course  very 
skeptical  regarding  all.  Perhaps  he  would  be  less  so  if  the 
recent  much-better-recorded  ones  had  been  open  to  him.  Yet 
despite  them,  I  am  not  free  from  similar  skepticism. 

I  enjoyed  the  acquaintance  of  Judge  Edmonds'  daughter 
Laura  (Mrs.  Gilmore) — a  woman  of  rare  charm,  refinement, 
and  cultivation,  whose  sincerity  I  deem  beyond  question.  She 
told  me  many  marvels  of  telopsis  and  precognition  from  her 
own  experience.  I  had  not  then  taken  up  the  subject  seri- 
ously, and  was  careless  about  notes  and  correspondence. 

Browning,  the  poet,  tells  (the  evidence  is  in  Pr.  II,  130),  of 

"  wearing  under  his  coat-sleeves  some  gold  wrist-studs  . . .  which 
he  had  quite  recently  taken  into  wear,  in  the  absence  (by  mis- 
take of  a  sempstress)  of  his  ordinary  wrist-buttons.  He  had 


Ch.  XVIII]   Browning  and  Count  Giunasi.  More  Foster  243 

never  before  worn  them  in  Florence  or  elsewhere,  and  had 
found  them  in  some  old  drawer,  where  they  had  lain  forgotten 
for  years.  One  of  these  studs  he  took  out  and  handed  to  the 
Count  [Giunasi],  who  held  it  in  his  hand  awhile,  looking 
earnestly  in  Mr.  Browning's  face,  and  then  he  said,  as  if  much 
impressed,  '  C'e  qualche  cosa  che  mi  grida  nelP  orecchio, 
"  Uccisione,  uccisione!  "  '  (There  is  something  here  which  cries 
out  in  my  ear,  '  Murder,  murder ! ') 

" '  And  truly,'  says  Mr.  Browning,  '  those  very  studs  were 
taken  from  the  dead  body  of  a  great-uncle  of  mine,  who  was 
violently  killed  on  his  estate  in  St.  Kitts,  nearly  eighty  years 

ago The  occurrence  of  my  great-uncle's  murder  was  known 

only  to  myself,  of  all  men  in  Florence,  as  certainly  was  also 
my  possession  of  the  studs.'" 

But  Count  Giunasi  could  have  got  it  from  Browning's  mind. 

Account  of  a  stance  at  the  Continental  Hotel  on  the  last 
day  of  March,  1873,  from  the  Philadelphia  Press.  Please 
remember  what  I  have  said  before  about  Mr.  Bartlett  being 
generally  a  confirmatory  witness  of  what  he  quotes.  Bartlett 
(op.  cit.,  9) : 

"'Well,  sir'  (with  the  usual  brusquerie  of  the  journalist, 
who  has  no  time  to  lose  in  conventionalities,  for  the  paper 
must  go  to  press  at  a  certain  time) — '  well,  sir,  let  me  grasp 
the  situation  at  once,  and  I  confess  candidly  that  I  have  not 
even  a  scintilla  of  doubt  as  to  the  falsity  of  Spiritualism  and 
its  varied  forms  and  phases  of  humbug  and  jugglery.' 

"  As  the  journalist  approaches  his  subject  more  closely,  he 
feels  that  his  usual  impersonality  must  be  sometimes  sunk  as  he 
recites  his  experiences  for  that  one-half  hour  in  the  medium's 
room.  These  experiences  are  not  simply  strange,  unaccountable, 
mysterious,  or  any  of  the  words  which  denote  the  idea  of  things 
unaccounted  for  by  natural  causes;  they  are  simply  'awful.' 
The  writer  feels  as  though  he  were  drifting  into  sacrilege  in 
his  endeavor  to  give  or  to  conceive  of  an  idea  of  the  power  of 
this  man.  When  the  reporter  saw  this  man  look  back  over 
long  years  of  time  and  long  miles  of  space,  and  down  deep  into 
the  moldering  dust  of  long-forgotten  graves,  and  drag  up  to  the 
clear  light  of  the  present  noonday  sun  of  Philadelphia  thoughts 
from  the  inmost  recesses  of  the  heart  of  a  woman  who,  in  life, 
would  hardly  have  confessed  those  thoughts  to  herself — when 
he  saw  the  name  of  the  woman  and  that  of  the  man  she  loved 
(names  which  the  inquirer  had  himself  almost  forgotten,  time 
and  circumstance  having  almost  completely  blotted  them  out 
of  memory) — when  he  saw  those  names  written  in  plain,  dis- 
tinct characters,  in  letters  formed  of  the  living  blood  at  that 
moment  coursing  through  the  hand  of  Foster — he  could  not 


244  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

refrain  from  yielding  to  the  impulse  to  cry  out  in  ideal  pain 
and  awe-striking  fear,  stagger  up  from  the  table,  and  walk 
about  the  room  till  a  modified  calmness  came  to  his  excited 
feelings.  And  yet  these  were  but  the  mere  rudiments  of  the 
'  art,'  if  it  may  so  be  called ;  but  it  may  not  be  so  called,  even 
though  the  loss  of  a  word  leaves  the  sentence  unfinished,  for 
it  was  no  '  art.' 

"  Mr.   Foster   spoke   the   truth  when   he  made   the   remark, 

'  Mr. ,  I  will  reveal  to  you  things  that  you  would  not  dare 

publish;  they  are  too  sacred;  they  touch  family,  social,  and 
heart  relations  too  nearly  even  to  be  mentioned  by  the  faintest 
allusion.'  And  the  listener  paid  the  penalty  for  his  skepticism 
and  scoffing  even  to  the  uttermost  farthing,  such  a  penalty  the 
amount  of  which  he  dare  not  publish." 

The  emotion  and  "  fine  writing "  in  the  report  tend  to 
detract  from  its  probable  accuracy,  but  on  the  other  hand  there 
is  no  indication  of  anything  more  than  telepathy:  the  sitter 
apparently  knew  everything  Foster  told  him.  The  initials 
on  Foster's  hand  were  a  favorite  exhibition  of  his,  though 
he  did  not  show  it  to  me.  It  has  already  been  treated  under 
"  Stigmata." 

Visions  from  Persons  Present 

The  other  day  one  of  my  sisters  went  to  see  one  of  the 
Atlantic  City  gang  of  palmists,  fortune-tellers,  etc.  He  told 
her  how  long  she  had  been  a  widow,  and  that  she  had  made 
a  mistake  in  selling  a  tract  of  land — both  of  which  facts 
were  of  course  well  known  to  her;  evidently  the  fellow  had 
some  telepathic  power.  He  said  he  "  seemed  to  see  "  the  tract 
of  land,  though  my  sister  never  saw  it:  he  had  a  vision,  as 
Foster  had  with  me. 

The  very  first  paper  published  by  the  S.  P.  R.  was  on 
"  Thought  Reading/'  by  a  committee  consisting  of  Professor 
Barrett  and  Messrs.  Gurney  and  Myers ;  and  a  very  primitive 
paper  it  was,  compared  with  what  the  same  men  were  able 
to  furnish  from  fuller  experience.  It  asks  the  question 
(Pr.  I,  13) : 

"Is  there  or  is  there  not  any  existing  or  attainable  evidence 
that  can  stand  fair  physiological  criticism,  to  support  a  belief 
that  a  vivid  impression  or  a  distinct  idea  in  one  mind  can  be 
communicated  to  another  mind  without  the  intervening  help 
of  the  recognized  organs  of  sensation?  And  if  such  evidence 
be  found,  is  the  impression  derived  from  a  rare  or  partially 


Ch.  XVIII]    Mr.  Outline's  Report  to  S.  P.  R.  245 

developed  and  hitherto  unrecognized  sensory  organ,  or  has  the 
mental  percept  been  CToked  directly  without  any  antecedent 
sense-percept  ? " 

And  it  handles  the  now  antiquated  questions  of  collusion, 
more  or  less  conscious  signaling,  etc.,  etc.,  and  discusses 
the  willing  game,  the  public  exhibitions  of  Bishop,  Cum- 
berland, and  Corey,  etc.,  etc. 

Then  are  given  the  results  of  some  experiments  with  the 
Creery  children  tending  to  prove  transfer  of  words  and  cards. 

There  is  another  report  from  the  same  committee  in  Pr.  I, 
70-97,  with  duplicates  of  drawings  made  by  "  agents  "  and 
copied  without  being  seen  by  "  recipients."  The  resemblances 
are  unmistakable.  A  similar  report  is  in  Pr.  I,  161-213. 

Then  comes  a  report,  in  Pr.  I,  263-81,  when  Mr.  Podmore 
had  been  added  to  the  committee,  which  seems  to  be  chrono- 
logically later  than  a  report  printed  in  Pr.  II,  24ff.,  and  to 
be  a  tabulated  summary  of  it,  but  apparently  from  considera- 
tions of  space  or  some  other  convenience,  printed  out  of 
chronological  order. 

The  report  in  Pr.  II  is: 

"  An  Account  of  some  experiments  in  Thought-Transference, 
Conducted  by  Malcolm  Guthrie,  J.P.,  and  James  Birchall, 
Hon.  Sec.  of  the  Literary  and  Philosophical  Society  of  Liver- 
pool." 

Mr.  Guthrie  writes  (Pr.  II,  24-5) : 

"  A  party  of  young  ladies . . .  found  that  certain  of  their 
number,  when  blindfolded,  were  able  to  name  very  correctly 
figures  selected  from  an  almanac  suspended  on  the  wall  of  the 
room,  when  their  companions,  having  hold  of  their  hands,  fixed 
their  attention  upon  some  particular  day  of  the  month 

"  About  this  time  I  read  an  article  by  Mr.  F.  Corder  in  the 
February  number  of  CasselVa  Magazine,  which  was  written  with 
such  an  air  of  truthfulness . . .  that ...  I  thereupon  determined 
to  try  the  experiments,  as  described  in  Mr.  Corder*s  paper,  upon 
my  son,  a  nervous  and  susceptible  fair-haired  boy  of  ten  years 
of  ape.  Much  to  my  astonishment,  and  his  own,  he  named 
quickly  and  without  difficulty  objects  which  I  placed  behind  him 

when  blindfolded He,  however,  would  not  perform  more 

than  two  or  three  experiments  at  a  time,  saying  that  it  made 
him  '  feel  queer.' 

"  I,  however,  at  a  subsequent  period,  tested  my  son's  powers 
under  proper  scientific  conditions  with  the  assistance  of  Mr. 


246  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Birchall;  and  we  were  both  satisfied  as  to  his  possession  of  the 
faculty,  although  we  did  not  consider  him  a  useful  subject 

for  study 

"  As  to  the  party  of  young  ladies  to  whom  I  referred ...  I 
am  a  partner  in  one  of  the  large  drapery  establishments  in  the 
city  of  Liverpool,  and . . .  the  young  ladies  are  connected  with 
one  of  the  show-rooms  of  that  establishment." 

The  experiments  that  these  young  ladies  had  begun  for 
amusement  were  now  continued  scientifically.  The  report 
abounds  in  instances  where  some  of  them  described  unseen 
objects  upon  which  the  others  concentrated  attention,  e.g. 
(Pr.  II,  27f.) : 

"  The  idea  or  name  of  the  object  did  not  come  first  to  the 
percipient,  but  the  appearance  seemed  to  dawn  gradually  upon 
the  mind. . . .  First  the  color  impression  was  received,  then  the 
general  shape,  and  afterwards  any  special  characteristic,  and 

finally,  the  name As  an  illustration,  take  the  case  of  a 

blue  feather.  The  'subject'  said,  'It  is  pale?  It  looks  like 
a  leaf;  but  it  can't  be  a  leaf — looks  like  a  feather  curled.  Is 
it  a  feather?'  Again  a  key  was  described  as  'A  little  tiny 
thing  with  a  ring  at  one  end  and  a  little  flag  at  the  other,  like 
a  toy  flag.'  Urged  to  name  it,  she  said,  '  It  is  very  like  a 
key.' ^ 

"  Proceeding  a  step  further  we  agreed,  in  the  absence  of  the 
subject  from  the  room,  to  imagine  some  object,  and,  under 
similar  conditions,  to  ask  her  to  describe  it.  This  experiment 
was  also  successfully  performed 

"  We . . .  found  that  the  movements  of  objects  exhibited  could 
be  discerned.  The  idea  was  suggested  by  an  experiment  tried 
with  a  card  which,  in  order  that  all  present  should  see,  I  moved 
about  and  was  informed  by  the  percipient,  Miss  E.,  that  it  was 
a  card,  but  she  could  not  tell  which  one  because  it  seemed  to 
be  moving  about. ...  I  bought  a  toy  monkey,  which  worked 
up  and  down  on  a  stick  by  means  of  a  string  drawing  the 
arms  and  legs  together.  The  answer  was :  'I  see  red  and 
yellow,  and  it  is  darker  at  one  end  than  the  other.  It  is  like  a 

flag  moving  about — it  is  moving Now  it  is  opening  and 

shutting  like  a  pair  of  scissors.' 

" In  the  transference  of  names,  short  quotations,  etc 

we  met  with  but  little  success,  but  on  one  occasion,  the  proverb, 
'  Time  flies,'  having  been  thought  of  by  the  company,  elicited 
the  answer,  ' Is  it  two  words?— is  it  " Time  flies "? ' " 

After  a  while  outsiders  were  called  in  to  witness,  and  the 
experiments  were  not  so  successful  because  of  nervousness  and 
lack  of  concentration  on  the  part  of  agent,  or  recipient,  or 


Ch.  XVIII]    Mathematical  Estimate  of  Experiments       247 

both.  Sometimes,  after  visitors  had  gone,  agents  and  recipi- 
ents who  had  failed  would  make  a  fresh  start  with  much 
success. 

Ideas  of  a  colored  church  window,  a  revolving  lamp  to  which 
clung  a  stuffed  monkey  swinging  a  cocoanut  were  conveyed 
with  considerable  success.  So  were  names,  numbers,  tastes,  in 
fact  virtually  all  ordinary  sensations  except  odors,  and  there 
are  also  drawings  which  the  "recipients"  reproduced  with 
varying  success.  Some  are  given  in  the  paper.  The  re- 
semblance is  unmistakable. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  has  a  report  on  Mr.  Guthrie's  experiments 
in  Pr.  II.  He  remarks  (Pr.  II,  190-1) : 

"  How  the  transfer  takes  place,  or  whether  there  is  any 
transfer  at  all,  or  what  is  the  physical  reality  underlying  the 
terms  'mind/  'consciousness,'  'impression,'  and  the  like;  and 
whether  this  thing  we  call  mind  is  located  in  the  person,  or 
in  the  space  round  him,  or  in  both,  or  neither;  whether  indeed 
the  term  location,  as  applied  to  mind,  is  utter  nonsense  and 
simply  meaningless — concerning  all  these  things  I  am  absolutely 
blank,  and  have  no  hypothesis  whatsoever.  I  may,  however, 
be  permitted  to  suggest  a  rough  and  crude  analogy.  That  the 
brain  is  the  organ  of  consciousness  is  patent,  but  that  conscious- 
ness is  located  in  the  brain  is  what  no  psychologist  ought  to 
assert;  for  just  as  the  energy  of  an  electric  charge,  though 
apparently  on  the  conductor,  is  not  on  the  conductor,  but  in 
all  the  space  round  it;  just  as  the  energy  of  an  electric  current, 
though  apparently  in  the  copper  wire,  is  certainly  not  all  in 
the  copper  wire,  and  possibly  not  any  of  it;  so  it  may  be  that 
the  sensory  consciousness  of  a  person,  though  apparently  located 
in  his  brain,  may  be  conceived  of  as  also  existing  like  a  faint 
ech»  in  space,  or  in  other  brains,  though  these  are  ordinarily 
too  busy  and  preoccupied  to  notice  it." 

In  Pr.  II,  239ff.,  is  given  an  account  by  Gurney  of  some 
experiments  by  M.  Richet,  and  an  application  to  them  of 
the  Calculus  of  Probabilities  by  Richet  himself  and  the 
brothers  Lodge.  All  is  too  technical  for  reproduction  here, 
even  if  there  were  space.  M.  Richet's  conclusion  was  that 
the  probabilities  that  the  experiments  proved  thought-trans- 
ference were  two  to  one.  Gurney  thought  that  Richet's  cal- 
culation left  a  wide  element  for  mistake  and  unconscious 
fraud,  and  that  leaving  that  element  out,  the  probabilities 
were  much  higher. 


248  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

In  Pr.  Ill,  424,  begins  a  paper  by  Mr.  Guthrie,  nearly 
two  years  later  than  his  preceding  one.  The  experiments  had 
gone  on  under  the  supervision  of  various  eminent  men  of 
science,  but  Mr.  Guthrie  says  (Pr.  Ill,  425-6) : 

"  I  have  noticed  a  falling  off ...  since  our  first  great  re- 
sults  1  am  not  equal  to  my  former  self  in  my  power  to 

give  off  impressions,  and  if  I  exert  myself  to  do  so,  I  experience 

unpleasant  effects  in  the  head  and  nervous  system Then 

we  have  lost  one  of  our  percipients;  and  as  the  novelty  and 
vivacity  of  our  seances  has  departed,  there  is  not  tha  same 
geniality  and  freshness  as  at  the  outset.  The  thing  has  be- 
come monotonous,  whereas  it  was  formerly  a  succession  of 
surprises.  We  have  now  nothing  new  to  try 

" Dr.  Lodge  tried  the  remarkable  experiment  of  two 

independent  visual  impressions,  transferred  at  the  same  time 
by  two  agents  to  the  mind  of  one  percipient,  which  resulted  in 
a  combined  impression,  in  which  the  two  originals  were  abso- 
lutely united." 

Here  is  his  account  of  it.  (Lodge :  Survival  of  Man, 
p.  52)  : 

" I  arranged  the  double  object  between  Miss  R — d  and 

Miss  E.,  who  happened  to  be  sitting  nearly  facing  one  an- 
other. . . .  The  drawing  was  a  square  on  one  side  of  the  paper, 
a  cross  on  the  other.  Miss  R— d  looked  at  the  side  with  the 
square  on  it.  Miss  E.  looked  at  the  side  with  the  cross.  Neither 
knew  what  the  other  was  looking  at — nor  did  the  percipient 

know   that   anything  unusual  was   being  tried Very   soon 

Miss  R — d  said,  '  I  see  things  moving  about 1  seem  to  see 

two  things. ...  I  see  first  one  up  there   and  then  one  down 

there 1   don't  know  which   to  draw 1  can't  see  either 

distinctly.'  (Well  anyhow,  draw  what  you  have  seen.)  She 
took  off  the  bandage  and  drew  first  a  square,  and  then  said, 
'  Then  there  was  the  other  thing  as  well . . .  afterwards  they 
seemed  to  go  into  one,'  and  she  drew  a  cross  inside  the  square 
from  corner  to  corner,  adding  afterwards,  'I  don't  know  what 
made  me  put  it  inside.' " 

The  result  was  like  a  drawing  of  the  back  of  an  envelope. 

The  diagrams  in  Pr.  Ill  were  not  apparently  as  successful 
as  those  in  the  earlier  papers,  but  in  the  earlier  papers  none 
but  successful  ones  were  given,  while  this  paper  contains 
several  unsuccessful  ones. 

Farther  accounts  or  criticisms  of  thought-transference  are 
contained  in  Pr.  IV  to  VIII  and  XI,  but  they  add  little. 


Ch.  XVIII]    Transference  of  Imagined  Scenes  249 

There  is  an  interesting  fact  regarding  two  sisters  as  alter- 
nately agent  and  percipient,  stated  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in 
Pr.  VII,  375 : 

"  So  far  as  my  own  observation  went,  it  was  interesting  and 
new  to  me  to  see  how  clearly  the  effect  seemed  to  depend  on 
contact,  and  how  abruptly  it  ceased  when  contact  was  broken. 
While  guessing  through  a  pack  of  cards,  for  instance,  rapidly 
and  continuously,  I  sometimes  allowed  contact,  and  sometimes 
stopped  it;  and  the  guesses  changed,  from  frequently  correct 
to  quite  wild,  directly  the  knuckles  or  fingertips,  or  any  part 
of  the  skin  of  the  two  hands  ceased  to  touch.  It  was  almost 
like  breaking  an  electric  circuit  At  the  same  time,  partial 
contact  seemed  less  effective  than  a  thorough  hand  grasp." 

In  Pr.  VIII,  434,  are  some  remarkable  experiments  in 
guessing  imagined  scenes  which  had  no  existence.  Mrs. 
Thaw,  percipient;  Dr.  Thaw  and  Mr.  Wyatt,  agents. 

"1st  Scene.  Locomotive  running  away  without  engineer, 
and  tears  up  station. — Missed. 

"  2nd  Scene.  The  first  real  FLYING  MACHINE  going  over 
Madison  Square  Tower,  and  the  people  watching. — Percipient: 
I  see  lots  of  people.  Crowds  are  going  to  war.  They  are  so 
excited.  Are  they  throwing  water?  (Percipient  said  after- 
wards she  thought  it  was  a  fire  and  that  was  the  reason  of 
the  crowd.)  Or  sailors  pulling  at  ropes.  Agent  said,  '  What 
are  they  doing?'  Percipient:  They  are  all  looking  up.  It  is  a 
balloon  or  someone  in  trouble  up  there.  Agent  said,  '  Wliy 
balloon?'  Percipient:  They  are  all  looking  up.  Agent  said, 
'  I  thought  of  a  possible  scene  in  the  future.'  Percipient : 
Oh,  it's  the  first  man  flying.  That's  what  he's  doing  up  there. 
Agent:  'Where  is  it?'  Percipient:  In  the  city." 

In  Pr.  XI,  3,  Mr.  Rawson  says : 

"  If,  as  some  maintain,  thought  moves  by  way  of  undulations 
(or  vibrations)  in  some  medium  more  subtle  than  ether  which 
can  permeate  to  the  brain,  the  interposition  of  an  obstacle  may 
interfere  with  those  undulations.  The  result  of  my  experi- 
ments when  an  obstacle  has  been  interposed  shows  that  it  does 
not  arrest  them  entirely,  and  at  the  same  time  proves,  to  my 
satisfaction  at  any  rate,  that  the  success  of  the  experiments 
cannot  be  attributed  to  collusion." 

An  intervening  object  would  of  course  distract  the  attention 
and  lessen  the  confidence  of  both  agent  and  percipient.  Nev- 
ertheless successful  experiments  have  been  conducted  with  the 
two  parties  in  separate  rooms.  All  the  experiments  yet  alluded 


250  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

to  were  conducted,  however,  before  the  discovery  of  the  vibra- 
tions in  wireless  telegraphy,  which  pass  through  all  sorts  of  ob- 
stacles. After  this  discovery  probably  the  influence  of  ob- 
stacles in  thought-transference  would  not  have  been  con- 
sidered. At  least  the  later  Pr.  S.  P.  R.,  so  far  as  they  go, 
indicate  that  it  has  not  been. 

By  the  appearance  of  Pr.  XI  in  1895  apparently  the  evi- 
dence for  thought-transference  had  become  so  conclusive  that 
the  society  did  not  care  to  publish  more,  at  least  of  the 
ordinary  kind,  although  there  were  aspects  of  it  incidental  to 
many  phenomena  described  before  and  after,  and  there  were 
some  specially  interesting  experiments  between  two  ladies  pub- 
lished in  the  Journal  (not  the  Proceedings)  S.  P.  E.  for 
March,  1906,  and  in  Pr.  XXI.  The  friends  were  generally 
separated  twenty  miles  or  more,  and  the  ideas  transferred 
were  mainly  visual,  of  scenery,  persons,  etc.,  one  of  the  ladies 
being  an  artist. 

In  1895  appeared  Podmore's  book:  Apparitions  and 
Thought  Transference,  which  is  reviewed  by  Professor  New- 
bold  in  Pr.  XI,  149. 

The  following  remarks  in  the  review  are  specially  worth 
considering  (Pr.  XI,  150-2)  : 

"It  appears  that  tastes,  smells,  pains,  visual  images,  motor 
impulses,  and  inhibitions  have  been  transferred  to  normal  and 
hypnotized  patients,  at  varying  distances  and  under  conditions 
which  preclude  any  supposition  of  the  intervention  of  normal 
means.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  anyone  can  follow 
Mr.  Podmore's  masterly  presentation  of  these  results  without 
experiencing  some  degree  either  of  conviction  or  of  confusion. 

" '  If,'  he  says  on  page  144,  '  all  the  [spontaneous] 

cases . . .  hitherto  recorded  could  be  shown  one  by  one  to  be 
explicable  by  more  familiar  causes . . .  the  grounds  for  the  be- 
lief in  telepathy  would  not  be  seriously  affected;  we  should 
merely  have  to  modify  our  conception  of  its  nature,  and  restrict 
its  boundaries.' 

"  This  material  is  interpreted  by  many  in  favor  of  two 
theories  which  are  at  present  in  the  deepest  disgrace  in  the 
scientific  world, — the  doctrine  of  a  life  after  death,  and  its 
twin,  the  belief  that  the  intelligence  does  occasionally  in  some 
sense  leave  its  body  during  life,  and  visit  distant  scenes.  Mr. 
Podmore's  object  in  adducing  this  evidence  is,  or  seems  to  be, 
not  merely  to  prove  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  non-sensory 


Ch.  XVIII]    Newbold  on  Podmore's  "Apparitions"       251 

communication  between  mind  and  mind  while  in  the  body, 
but  also  to  show  that,  admitting  such  a  non-sensory  communica- 
tion as  experimentally  established,  we  can  explain  these  spon- 
taneous phenomena  without  resorting  to  either  of  the  above 
obnoxious  doctrines. 

" We  can  be  quite  sure  that . . .  the  phantasm  does  in- 
deed belong,  as  Mr.  Podmore  shows  in  the  chapter  on  hallucina- 
tion in  general,  to  the  world  of  dream  rather  than  to  that  of 
matter.  But  until  we  have  fixed  more  certainly  the  relations 
of  the  dream-world  to  the  material,  it  is  as  well  not  to  be  too 
dogmatic  in  our  assumptions 

"  But  frequently  the  circumstances  are  such  as  strongly  to 
suggest  an  extra-human  origin  for  the  telepathic  impulse. 
Often  the  information  thus  conveyed  is  known  to  have  been 
in  possession  of  some  friend  or  relative  of  the  percipient  who 
has  recently  died,  and  the  information  is  sometimes  such  as 
we  should  suppose  the  dead  would  wish  to  convey  to  the  living. 
When  in  such  cases  we  not  only  know  that  the  information 
was  in  the  possession  of  the  dead,  but  also  have  good  reason 
for  thinking  that  it  is  not  in  the  possession  of  anyone  living, 
or  not  in  the  possession  of  any  living  person  known  to  the 
percipient,  the  presumption  that  the  impulse  originated  with  a 
dead  person  becomes  very  strong.  Mr.  Podmore's  unwillingness 
to  resort  to  this  hypothesis  is,  I  think,  not  unjustifiable.  How- 
ever repugnant  such  a  doctrine  may  be  to  our  sensibilities  as 
scientists, — especially  since  it  has  been  conjoined  with  the 
absurdities  of  '  Modern  Spiritualism/ — it  is  our  duty  to  con- 
sider it  fairly  as  one  of  the  conceivable  hypotheses.  It  is  cer- 
tainly not  yet  proved.  But  there  was  a  time  when  telepathy 
between  living  minds  was  also  not  yet  proved,  and  it  is  not 
likely  that  it  would  have  stood  as  near  proof  as  it  does  to-day 
had  Professor  Sidgwick,  Mr.  Podmore,  Mr.  Gurney,  Mr.  Myers, 
Mr.  Hodgson,  and  others,  at  every  step  refused  to  consider  the 
hypothesis  at  all.  Such  evidence,  as  Mr.  Podmore  himself 
shows,  should  be  considered  in  the  aggregate." 

Here  is  another  vision  (Bartlett,  op.  cit.,  51)  : 

Says  a  writer  in  the  New  York  World,  Dec.  27,  1885: 

" While  we  were  talking  one  night,  Foster  and  I,  there 

came  a  knock  at  the  door.  Bartlett  arose  and  opened  it,  dis- 
closing as  he  did  so  two  young  men  plainly  dressed,  of  marked 

provincial  aspect 1  saw  at  once  that  they  were  clients,  and 

arose  to  go.  Foster  restrained  me. 

" '  Sit  down,'  he  said.  '  I'll  try  and  get  rid  of  them,  for  I'm 
not  in  the  humor  to  be  disturbed ' 

"  Foster  hinted  that  he  had  no  particular  inclination  to 
gratify  them  then  and  there,  but  they  protested  that  they  had 


252  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

come  some  distance,  and,  with  a  characteristically  good-natured 
smile,  he  gave  in " 

Then  follows  an  account  of  a  fairly  good  seance — taps  on 
the  marble  table,  reading  pellets,  describing  persons,  etc., 
until 

"  I  thought  Foster  was  tired  of  the  interview  and  was  feign- 
ing sleep  to  end  it.  All  of  a  sudden  he  sprang  to  his  feet 
with  such  an  expression  of  horror  and  consternation  as  an  actor 
playing  Macbeth  would  have  given  a  good  deal  to  imitate.  His 
eyes  glared,  his  breast  heaved,  his  hands  clenched 

" '  Why  did  you  come  here  ? '  cried  Foster,  in  a  wail  that 
seemed  to  come  from  the  bottom  of  his  soul.  '  Why  do  you 
come  here  to  torment  me  with  such  a  sight?  Oh,  God!  It's 
horrible !  It's  horrible ! ...  It  is  your  father  I  see ! ...  He 
died  fearfully!  He  died  fearfully!  He  was  in  Texas — on  a 
horse — with  cattle.  He  was  alone.  It  is  the  prairies  1  Alone! 
The  horse  fell!  He  was  under  it!  His  thigh  was  broken — 
horribly  broken!  The  horse  ran  away  and  left  him!  He  lay 
there  stunned!  Then  he  came  to  his  senses!  Oh!  his  thigh 
was  dreadful!  Such  agony!  My  God!  Such  agony!' 

"  Foster  fairly  screamed  at  this.  The  younger  of  the  men 
. . .  broke  into  violent  sobs.  His  companion  wept,  too,  and  the 
pair  of  them  clasped  hands.  Bartlett  looked  on  concerned.  As 
for  me,  I  was  astounded. 

" '  He  was  four  days  dying — four  days  dying — of  starvation 
and  thirst,'  Foster  went  on,  as  if  deciphering  some  terrible 
hieroglyphs  written  on  the  air.  '  His  thigh  swelled  to  the  size 
of  his  body.  Clouds  of  flies  settled  on  him — flies  and  vermin — 
and  he  chewed  his  own  arm  and  drank  his  own  blood.  He  died 
mad.  And  my  God !  he  crawled  three  miles  in  those  four  days ! 
Man  !  man !  that's  how  your  father  died ! ' 

"  So  saying,  with  a  great  sob,  Foster  dropped  into  his  chair, 
his  cheeks  purple,  and  tears  running  down  them  in  rivers.  The 
younger  man . . .  burst  into  a  wild  cry  of  grief  and  sank  upon 
the  neck  of  his  friend.  He,  too,  was  sobbing  as  if  his  own 
heart  would  break.  Bartlett  stood  over  Foster  wiping  his  fore- 
head with  a  handkerchief , 

"'It's  true,'  said  the  younger  man's  friend;  'his  father  was 
a  stock-raiser  in  Texas,  and  after  he  had  been  missing  from  his 
drove  for  over  a  week,  they  found  him  dead  and  swollen  with 
his  leg  broken.  They  tracked  him  a  good  distance  from  where 
he  must  have  fallen.  But  nobody  ever  heard  till  now  how  he 
died.' " 

Now  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  the  young  visitor 
could  ever  have  had  this  scene  in  his  mind  as  vividly  as 
Foster  had.  In  that  case  where  and  how  did  Foster  get  the 


Ch.  XVIII]    The  Vision  of  the  White  Fawn  253 

vividness  and  emotion?    How  do  we  get  them  fa  dreams? 
He  dreamed  while  he  was  awake. 

Bartlett  quotes  the  following  "  from  Appendix  P  of  Pro- 
fessor Carpenter's  book."  What  book,  he  has  forgotten,  and  a 
reasonable,  though  moderate,  search  has  not  enabled  me  to 
discover. 

"  Some  eight  or  ten  years  ago  in  New  York  City,  a  gentleman 
and  his  wife  were  seated,  one  summer  afternoon,  in  their 
pleasant  little  parlor,  talking  of  the  '  hereafter,'  when  the  hus- 
band jokingly  remarked,  '  Wife,  if  you  die  first,  will  you  come 
to  see  me  again  ? '  She  laughingly  answered,  '  Certainly,  I 
will.'  '  In  what  shape,'  said  the  husband,  '  will  you  come,  so 
that  I  may  be  sure  of  your  identity?'  The  wife  replied,  as 
glancing  out  of  the  open  window  she  observed  a  pet  white 
fawn  playing  in  the  yard,  'I  will  come  in  the  shape  of  that 
white  fawn.' 

"  Five  years  later,  the  wife  died.  The  grief-stricken  hus- 
band, hearing  of  the  remarkable  gifts  of  Foster,  concluded  he 
would  seek  an  interview.  He  was  fortunate  in  finding  Foster 
alone.  Questions  were  written,  folded  and  placed  on  the  table 
in  broad  daylight,  in  the  usual  manner,  but  the  result  was  dis- 
appointing. No  response  came.  '  Strange,'  said  Foster,  placing 
the  papers  one  after  the  other  to  his  forehead,  'I  feel  no  in- 
fluence whatever.  I  fear  that  I  am  not  in  the  proper  condition 
to-day  to  satisfy  you.'  Again  Foster  placed  the  slips  to  his 
forehead  without  result,  and  then  rather  abstractedly  leaned 
back  in  his  chair.  All  at  once,  greatly  to  the  astonishment  of 
his  interviewer,  Foster  jumped  up  with  unmistakable  symptoms 
of  flurry  and  alarm  in  his  countenance,  at  the  same  time  brush- 
ing violently  from  his  lap  something  nobody  saw  or  felt  but 
himself.  At  last  he  said :  '  I  know  I  must  be  out  of  sorts,  un- 
strung; for  although  many  strange  things  are  constantly  hap- 
pening, I  never  had  an  experience  that  startled  me  so  before. 
It  may  seem  very  foolish  to  you,  but  as  I  had  one  of  your  slips 
pressed  to  my  forehead,  suddenly  looking  up,  I  saw  a  beautiful 
white  fawn  run  across  the  floor  towards  me,  and  it  jumped  into 
my  lap  the  moment  I  started  from  my  chair.  I  cannot  account 
for  it — cannot  understand  it;  I  only  know  I  saw  just  what  I 
have  described.' 

"  His  visitor  said  not  a  word,  gave  no  clue  to  an  explanation, 
and  did  not  subsequently  visit  Foster.  As  he  said,  he  was 
'  afraid  to  do  so.'  " 

There  was  no  actual  fawn.  Foster  did  not  see  any  material 
thing  teloptically,  but  got  a  suggestion  from  the  husband's 
Btore  of  memories,  and  expanded  it  into  its  vision,  as  we  are 


254  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

constantly  expanding  all  sorts  of  notions  into  dreams.  The 
fawn  was  really  less  a  construction  of  Foster's  than  my  shell 
and  pearl  were ;  for  the  fawn  had  been  in  the  husband's  mind, 
and  the  shell  and  pearl  in  combination,  and  especially  with 
the  pearl  falling  into  my  head,  never  had  been  in  mine. 

My  pearl  and  this  fawn  seem  like  catching  dream-figments 
from  another  mind;  why  not  dream-images  of  persons  in  the 
same  way?  Here  is  one  more,  but  in  it,  as  in  many  cases, 
the  percipient  sees  against  the  sitter's  mind.  What  did  he  see? 

From  the  Troy  Press,  March  6,  1875.  Bartlett  (op.  cit., 
p.  108) : 

"  He  made  almost  a  mental  photograph  of  one  of  my  rela- 
tives— an  aunt  who  died  fifteen  years  ago,  and  whose  memory 
has  been  especially  dear  to  me.  After  he  had  given  the  shape 
of  her  face,  her  apparent  age,  the  color  of  her  hair,  and  a  sad, 
thoughtful  expression  that  especially  characterized  her  face,  I 
added :  '  She  had  brown  eyes.'  Mr.  Foster  instantly  looked  up, 
as  if  into  her  face,  and  said :  '  No ;  hazel  eyes.'  I  afterwards 
learned  that  he  was  right  and  I  wrong  about  it." 

The  sitter's  subliminal  vision  could  hardly  have  been  more 
correct  than  his  conscious  one,  and  given  Foster  a  correct 
image.  This  of  course  suggests  that  Foster  saw  the  aunt's 
spirit  rather  than  the  nephew's  recollection  of  her.  And  this 
suggests  in  turn  that  in  the  preceding  case  the  wife  actually 
did  appear  as  the  fawn,  though  the  husband  had  not  the  faculty 
to  see  her.  But  in  that  case  would  not  Foster  have  seen  her 
jump  into  her  husband's  lap  rather  than  his  own  ? 

Foster's  "  spirits  "  were  sometimes  in  the  body.  Mr.  Bart- 
lett writes  (op.  dt.,  p.  21)  : 

"  I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  a  certain  seance  where . . .  the 
spirit  was  described  as  having  bright  red  hair,  freckled  face, 
short  chin-whiskers,  etc.  The  gentleman  said,  '  You  have  given 
the  name  correctly,  and  you  have  perfectly  described  my 
brother,  but  he  is  alive  and  lives  in  Albany.'  Mr.  Foster  re- 
plied, '  In  these  visions,  I  perceive  the  persons  plainly,  but  I 
cannot  always  tell  whether  the  spirit  be  in  the  body,  or  out  of 
the  body.' " 

Telepathy  from  the  sitter. 

Here  is  a  very  significant  circumstance,  if  it  really  is  a  cir- 
cumstance, but  I  may  be  mistaken  in  my  impression.  Foster, 


Ch.  XVIII]        Ideas  from  Distant  Persons  255 

Mrs.  Piper,  and  others  frequently  talked  or  wrote  about  living 
persons,  but  although  many  of  the  dead  persons  they  men- 
tioned, themselves  took  the  floor  and  talked  or  were  reported 
in  propria  persona,  there  is  not  a  case  that  I  can  recall  where 
any  living  person  has  professed  to  speak  through  a  medium. 
Yet  on  seeing  this  Professor  Newbold  writes  me: 
"  If  I  am  not  mistaken  Dr.  Wiltse  once  was  represented  as 
so  speaking  through  Mrs.  Piper." 

Ideas  from  Persons  Distant 

The  following  was  probably  more  apt  to  be  teloteropathy 
from  the  boy's  mind  than  advice  from  any  "spirit."  (Bart- 
lett,  op.  cit.,  p.  100) : 

From  the  New  York  Graphic,  October  24,  1874. 

"  One  day  (and  everybody  knows  the  story  in  Philadelphia) 
Alexander  McClure,  the  old  Greeley  leader  of  Pennsylvania, 
came  into  the  Continental  Hotel  with  Colonel  John  B.  Forney. 
Mr.  McClure  was  very  sad,  for  he  had  received  news  that  his 
son  was  drowned  at  sea. 

"'What  do  you  think  about  it,  Foster?'  asked  Colonel 
Forney. 

" '  Why,  sir,  the  boy  is  not  drowned  at  all,'  replied  Foster. 
'  He's  alive  and  well,  and  you'll  have  a  letter  from  him  in  a  day 
or  two,  and  then  he  will  come  home.' 

"  Two  days  afterwards  McClure  met  Foster,  and  said,  with 
tears  of  gratitude :  '  Why,  Foster,  you  were  right.  My  boy  is 
all  safe.  I  had  a  letter  from  him  to-day.' " 

This  illustrates  a  very  frequent  experience — that  the  sensi- 
tive's susceptibility  extends  beyond  the  sitter  and  picks  up 
impressions  from  the  minds  of  distant  persons;  and  the  cases 
where  sensitives  have  produced  any  verifiable  thing  not  pos- 
sibly existent  in  such  minds,  are  rare.  But  if  they  were  not 
in  such  minds,  they  could  not  be  verified.  This,  therefore, 
is  of  course  not  necessarily  fatal  to  Foster's  own  conviction 
that  the  impressions  were  given  him  by  "  spirits." 

A  wife  feels  a  blow  received  by  a  distant  husband  (Pr.  II, 
128): 

"  BRANTWOOD,  CONISTON,  October  27th,  1883. 

"I  woke  up  with  a  start,  feeling  I  had  had  a  hard  blow  on 
my  mouth,  and  a  distinct  sense  that  I  had  been  cut,  and  was 
bleeding  under  my  upper  lip,  and  seized  my  pocket  handker- 
chief, and  held  it ...  to  the  part,  as  I  sat  up  in  bed,  and  after 


256  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

a  few  seconds,  when  1  removed  it,  I  was  astonished  not  to  see 
any  blood,  and  only  then  realized  it  was  impossible  anything 
could  have  struck  me  there,  as  I  lay  fast  asleep  in  bed,  and  so 
I  thought  it  was  only  a  dream! — but  I  looked  at  my  watch,  and 
saw  it  was  7,  and  finding  Arthur  (my  husband)  was  not  in  the 
room,  I  concluded  (rightly)  that  he  must  have  gone  out  on  the 

lake  for  an  early  sail 

"I  then  fell  asleep.  At  breakfast  (half -past  nine),  Arthur 
came  in  rather  late,  and  I  noticed  he  rather  purposely  sat 
farther  away  from  me  than  usual,  and  every  now  and  then 
put  his  pocket  handkerchief  furtively  up  to  his  lip. ...  I  said, 
*  Arthur,  why  are  you  doing  that  ? '  and  added  a  little  anxiously, 
'I  know  you've 'hurt  yourself;  but  I'll  tell  you  why  afterwards.' 
He  said,  '  Well,  when  I  was  sailing,  a  sudden  squall  came, 
throwing  the  tiller  suddenly  round,  and  it  struck  me  a  bad 
blow  in  the  mouth,  under  the  upper  lip,  and  it  has  been  bleed- 
ing a  good  deal  and  won't  stop.'  I  then  said,  '  Have  you  any 
idea  what  o'clock  it  was  when  it  happened  ? '  and  he  answered, 

'  It  must  have  been  about  seven.' 

"  JOAN  K.  SEVERN." 

Mr.  Severn  confirms  the  experience  throughout. 

Vague  uneasiness  leads  a  husband  to  his  injured  wife  (Pr. 
II,  125)  : 

"  CATHEDRAL  YARD,  WINCHESTER,  January  31st,  1884. 

" I  am  a  working  foreman  of  masons  at  Winchester 

Cathedral More  than  thirty  years  ago  ...  in  London  . . . 

I  carried  my  food  with  me,  and  therefore  had  no  call  to  leave 
the  work  all  day.  On  a  certain  day,  however,  I  suddenly  felt 
an  intense  desire  to  go  home,  but  as  I  had  no  business  there 
I  tried  to  suppress  it, — but  it  was  not  possible  to  do  so.  Every 

minute  the  desire  to  go  home  increased 1  got  fidgety  and 

uneasy,  and  felt  as  if  I  must  go,  even  at  the  risk  of  being 
ridiculed  by  my  wife 

" The  dbor  was  opened  by  my  wife's  sister . . .  who  lived 

a  few  streets  off.  She  looked  surprised  and  said,  '  Why,  Skir- 
ving,  how  did  you  know  ? '  '  Know  what  ? '  I  said.  '  Why,  about 
Mary  Ann.'  I  said,  '  I  don't  know  anything  about  Mary  Ann  ' 
(my  wife).  'Then  what  brought  you  home  at  present?'  I 
said,  '  I  can  hardly  tell  you.  I  seemed  to  want  to  come  home. 
But  what  is  wrong?'...  She  told  me  that  my  wife  had  been 
run  over  by  a  cab ...  and  she  had  called  for  me  ever  since, 
but  was  now  in  fits,  and  had  several  in  succession.  I  went 
upstairs,  and  though  very  ill  she  recognized  me,  and  stretched 
forth  her  arms  and  took  me  round  the  neck  and  pulled  my  head 
down  into  her  bosom.  The  fits  passed  away  directly,  and  my 
presence  seemed  to  tranquilize  her,  so  that  she  got  into  sleep, 


Ch.  XVIII]      Visions  from  Distant  Persons  257 

and  did  well.    Her  sister  told  me  that  she  had  uttered  the  most 

piteous  cries  for  me  to  come  to  her 

"ALEXANDER  SKIRTING." 

Visions  from  Persons  Distant 

Here  is  an  experience  more  attractive  than  the  average 
in  these  studies.  It  is  from  Rev.  P.  H.  Newnham  of  Maker, 
Davenport,  England,  given  in  a  paper  by  Myers  in  Pr.  III. 

At  Oxford  one  night  in  1854  Mr.  Newnham  went  to  bed 
with  a  violent  headache,  to  which  he  was  subject.  Mr. 
Newnham  says  (Pr.  Ill,  6f.) : 

"  I  dreamed  that  I  was  stopping  with  the  family  of  the  lady 
who  subsequently  became  ray  wife.  All  the  younger  ones  had 
gone  to  bed,  and  I  stopped  chatting  to  the  father  and  mother, 
standing  up  by  the  fireplace.  Presently  I  bade  them  good-night, 
took  my  candle,  and  went  off  to  bed.  On  arriving  in  the  hall, 
I  perceived  that  my  fiancee  had  been  detained  downstairs,  and 
was  only  then  near  the  top  of  the  staircase.  I  rushed  upstairs, 
overtook  her  on  the  top  step,  and  passed  my  two  arms  around 
her  waist 

"  On  this  I  woke,  and  a  clock  in  the  house  struck  ten  almost 
immediately  afterwards. 

••  So  strong  was  the  impression  of  the  dream  that  I  wrote  a 
detailed  account  of  it  next  morning  to  my  fiancee. 

"  Crossing  my  letter,  not  in  answer  to  it,  I  received  a  letter 
from  the  lady  in  question :  '  Were  you  thinking  about  me,  very 
specially,  last  night,  just  about  ten  o'clock?  For,  as  I  was 
going  upstairs  to  bed,  I  distinctly  heard  your  footsteps  on  the 
stairs,  and  felt  you  put  your  arms  round  my  waist.' " 

Mrs.  Newnham  writes  in  confirmation. 
Stillman  says  (op.  cit.,  I,  184) : 

"  On  one  occasion,  when  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brown  were  on  a  fish- 
ing trip  into  the  wild  parts  of  New  York  State,  and,  returning, 
were  on  their  way  to  the  railway  station,  the  wheel  of  their 
wagon  broke  and  they  had  to  go  to  a  blacksmith  on  the  road 
to  have  it  repaired.  She  said  to  her  husband  that  they  would 
lose  the  train,  to  which  the  voice  replied  that  they  would  be 
in  time;  for  the  train  was  late  and  they  would  arrive  with  a 
minute  to  spare,  and  in  fact  as  they  drew  up  at  the  station 

the  train  came  in  sight  and  they  had  a  minute  to  spare 

Her  husband  implicitly  and  always  followed  the  directions  given 
her  through  her  demon " 

The  S.  P.  R.  Committee  reports  (Pr.  II,  161)  : 


258  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

"  The  account  was  sent  to  us  by  the  Kev.  Canon  Warburton, 
The  Close,  Winchester. 

" '  Somewhere  about  the  year  1848  I  went  up  from  Oxford 

to  stay  a  day  or  two  with  my  brother 1  found  a  note  on 

the  table  apologizing  for  his  absence,  and  saying  that  he  had 

gone  to  a  dance 1  dozed  in  an  arm-chair,  but  started  up 

wide  awake  exactly  at  one,  ejaculating  "  By  Jove,  he's  down ! " 
and  seeing  him  coming  out  of  a  drawing-room  into  a  brightly 
illuminated  landing,  catching  his  foot  in  the  edge  of  the  top 
stair,  and  falling  headlong,  just  saving  himself  by  his  elbows 
and  hands.  (The  house  was  one  which  I  had  never  seen,  nor 
did  I  know  where  it  was.)  Thinking  very  little  of  the  matter 
I  fell  a-doze  again  for  half  an  hour,  and  was  awakened  by  my 
brother  suddenly  coming  in  and  saying,  "  Oh,  there  you  are. 
I  have  just  had  as  narrow  an  escape  of  breaking  my  neck 
as  I  ever  had  in  my  life.  Coming  out  of  the  ball-room,  I  caught 
my  foot  and  tumbled  full  length  down  the  stairs." 

"'W.  WARBURTON. 

" ' The  general  impression   was   of   a  narrow  landing 

brilliantly  illuminated,  and  I  remember  verifying  the  correct- 
ness of  this  by  questions  at  the  time. 

" '  This  is  my  sole  experience  of  the  kind.' " 

Here  are  three  accounts  of  apparently  teloteropathic  veridi- 
cal dreams  given  me  by  Professor  Pumpelly,  though  all  three 
may  have  been  teloptic,  and  the  last  one  telakoustic : 

"  Between  forty  and  fifty  years  ago,  while  visiting  my  sister 
in  New  York  City,  I  came  down  to  breakfast  where  I  found 
my  brother-in-law  reading  the  morning  paper.  Soon  my  sister 
also  came  down  and  joined  us  at  table.  She  said  she  had  had 
an  awful  dream;  she  had  dreamed  all  night  that  she  was  stand- 
ing in  a  church,  where  a  continuous  procession  of  men  was  filing 
by  her,  carrying  on  litters  something  covered  with  sheets. 

"  Her  husband  resumed  reading  his  paper  and  soon  said : 
'Why,  Netty,  here  it  says  that  they  are  removing  the  bodies 
from  the  St.  Mark's  graves.' 

"  Now,  my  sister's  first  child  had  been  buried  several  years 
before  in  the  graveyard  of  St.  Mark's  church.  My  sister  had 
not  seen  the  paper,  and  neither  she  nor  her  husband  had  heard 
of  any  intention  to  disturb  the  graves." 

"  In  the  late  winter  of  1864-5,  I  was  on  my  journey  through 
Siberia.  In  one  of  the  first  nights  after  leaving  Irkutsk  I 
dreamed  that  I  had  arrived  at  my  native  village  of  Owego  in 
New  York  and  had  walked  home  from  the  station.  As  I  came 
up  the  driveway  to  the  house  I  saw  my  mother  and  my  father 
standing  at  the  door  showing  signs  of  great  grief.  I  noticed 
that  my  aunt,  who  lived  with  us  and  whom  we  all  loved  dearly, 


Ch.  XVIII]    Professor  Pumpelly's  Veridical  Dreams      259 

was  not  there.  As  soon  as  I  waked  I  was  so  impressed  by  the 
dream  that  I  made  a  memorandum,  as  I  remember,  in  the  form 
of  an  inverted  torch,  with  the  date. 

"  When  I  reached  St.  Petersburg  about  three  weeks  later,  I 
found  in  my  mail  the  first  news  I  had  had,  for  six  months, 
from  home.  I  learned  that  the  aunt  I  had  missed  in  my 
dream  had  died.  I  do  not  remember  now  the  relation  in  time 
between  the  dates  of  the  death  and  the  dream.  It  was  close, 
and  my  impression  is  that  I  thought,  in  reading  the  letter, 
that  there  was  coincidence." 

"  In  1906  we  were  living  in  Capri.  One  morning  my  wife 
told  me  of  dreaming  that  she  found  her  sisters  and  her  brother 
Otis  (who  had  died  several  years  before)  in  tears.  When  they 
saw  her,  Otis  said :  '  We  must  tell  Eliza.' 

"  That  same  day  there  came  a  cablegram  saying  that  my 
wife's  favorite  brother  Horace  was  very  ill,  and  within  an  hour 
another  cable  saying  he  had  died." 

Here  is  an  unreported  case  that  came  to  me  direct  yes- 
terday. The  story  will  have  to  stand  for  what  it  may  be 
worth  on  my  sole  attestation.  The  parties  are  known  to 
me,  but  peculiar  circumstances  prevent  confirmation  by  pub- 
lishing their  names. 

On  the  first  of  January,  1912,  a  father  was  dying  in  one 
city  and  a  daughter  twelve  years  old  was  lying  ill  with 
pneumonia  in  another.  Suddenly  the  child,  with  a  rapt  ex- 
pression, raised  herself  to  a  sitting  posture;  her  attendant 
rushed  in  alarm  to  make  her  lie  down,  and  the  child  ex- 
claimed :  "  Father  was  taking  me  in  his  arms !  "  The  father 
died  at  about  the  time.  Whether  before  or  after  cannot  be 
accurately  determined. 

There  are  on  record  many  similar  occurrences  well  attested. 

Whether  all  visions  are  telepathic,  including  teloptic,  is  an 
open  question.  Myers  inclines  to  the  opinion  that  they  are 
not — that  sometimes  the  telergic  effect  includes  a  modifica- 
tion of  space  that  makes  the  vision  objective.  Certainly  such 
modifications  of  space  can  be  produced  by  mechanical  means, 
as  in  the  theatrical  exhibitions  I  have  already  described. 
Whether  they  can  be  produced  by  telergy  is  a  question.  There 
are  on  record  hundreds  of  such  visions  well  attested,  from 
those  of  simple  objects  deliberately  transferred  according  to 


260  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

the  early  S.  P.  R.  reports,  to  the  complex  ones  spontaneously 
received  by  Foster,  Colville,  and  others. 

The  phenomena  thus  far  given  I  have  been  content  to 
group  under  telepathy  from  the  living,  though  some  of  them 
are  hard  to  account  for  in  that  way. 

At  the  present  time  the  great  storehouse  for  these  ex- 
periences is  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  by  Edmund  Gurney, 
Frederic  W.  H.  Myers,  and  Frank  Podmore,  London,  1886. 
This  book  is  now  out  of  print.  It  is  criticised  in  Podmore's 
Apparitions  and  Thought  Transference.  There  is  a  very  good 
article,  with  many  cases,  in  Pr.  V  (Part  XIV)  by  Gurney,  com- 
pleted by  Myers  after  Gurney's  death.  There  is  also  an  im- 
portant discussion  by  Mrs.  Sidgwick  on  Phantasms  of  the 
Dead,  with  some  cases,  in  Pr.  Ill  (Part  VIII),  69f.  Others 
are  in  Pr.  VI  (Part  XV),  by  Myers,  and  in  Part  XVI  by 
Podmore  and  Myers,  and  in  Pr.  VIII  (Part  XXII)  by  Myers. 

Space  requires  that  generally  the  few  accounts  given  here 
should  be  much  condensed.  The  increased  vividness  of  de- 
tails and  frequent  accompanying  discussions  and  abundant 
confirmations  in  the  original  statements  would  generally  re- 
pay the  reader  for  going  to  the  sources  cited.  It  may  be 
worth  while  to  repeat  that  the  volumes  of  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R. 
generally  consist  of  several  parts,  which  can  be  had  separately 
from  Messrs.  W.  B.  Clarke  &  Co.,  of  Boston. 

Ideas  Apparently  from  the  Dead 

A  weakness  in  the  assumption  that  any  telepathic  intelli- 
gence or  vision  really  comes  from  the  dead  is  in  the  fact  that 
the  circumstances  are  nearly  always  in  the  minds  of  survivors 
near  the  scene  of  death,  and  may  be  teloteropathically  con- 
veyed to  the  percipient.  It  is  a  question,  however,  in  many 
cases,  whether  that  hypothesis  does  not  strain  probability 
more  than  the  spiritistic  hypothesis.  That  it  does,  seems  more 
frequently  the  conclusion  of  those  who  have  read  many  of  the 
cases,  than  of  those  who  know  but  few.  But  compare  the 
extracts  from  Professor  Pumpelly  a  page  or  two  back. 

Stillman  (op.  cit.,  I,  186-7)  tells  the  following  of  a  seance 
where  a  child  of  seven,  whose  name  is  suppressed,  acted  as 
medium.  Stillman's  questions  were  mental. 


Ch.  XVIII]      The  Stillman  Steamboat  Case  261 

"  After  several  relatives  had  been  named,  I  asked  if  our 
brother  Alfred  was  there,  to  which  she  instantly  replied,  '  There 
is  a  gentleman  sitting  on  the  corner  of  the  table  by  you  who 
says  his  name  is  Alfred.'  The  opportunity  then  occurred  to 
me  of  asking  a  '  test  question/  which  was,  '  If  Alfred  is  here, 
will  he  tell  me  when  he  last  saw  Harvey?'  The  relevance  of 
this  question  will  appear  from  the  fact  that  they  were  together 
on  the  steamer  whose  boiler  burst  on  the  Mississippi,  killing 
my  brother  and  causing  injury  to  the  cousin  such  that  he 
committed  suicide  a  month  later.  The  reply  was,  '  He  says  he 
does  not  remember.'  At  this  I  remarked  guardedly  to  the 
doctor  [Another  brother  of  Stillman,  who  was  present.  H.  H.]  : 
'I  asked  Alfred  when  he  last  saw  Harvey,  and  he  replies  that 
he  doesn't  remember,  but  he  must  have  seen  him  on  board  the 
boat.'  To  this  she  instantly  replied,  with  an  explosive  laugh, 
4  He  says  that  if  he  did  it  was  all  blown  out  of  him! ' ...  It  was 
quite  in  accordance  with  the  character  of  my  brother  to  joke 
on  the  most  serious  subjects — he  was  an  inveterate  joker " 

All  the  facts  were  known  to  at  least  two  persons  present. 
But  where  did  the  joke  come  from? 

Here  is  a  second  Foster  stigmata  case,  not  given  for  the 
stigmata,  however.  From  Bartlett  (op.  c\t.,  p.  12)  : 

"During  the  same  sitting  a  word  of  three  letters  appeared 
upon  the  back  of  Mr.  Foster's  hand — the  letters  were  formed 
by  a  red  discoloration  of  the  skin.  The  word  was  one  which 
was  agreed  upon  by  the  gentleman  and  his  wife  before  her 
death,  and  it  was  to  be  used  as  a  test  by  the  one  who  should 
die  first.  The  word  had  never  been  mentioned  to  any  person." 

In  this  test,  as  in  the  fawn  test,  Foster  was  more  successful 
than,  as  we  shall  see,  Mrs.  Piper  has  been  with  some  important 
agreed  post-mortem  tests. 

There  are  many  habitual  seers  of  waking  visions,  and  hearers 
of  voices,  and  the  heteromatists  who  write  while  awake  are 
closely  allied  with  them.  They  are  generally  religious  enthusi- 
asts. St.  Theresa,  Joan  of  Arc,  and  the  Seeress  of  Provost  are 
among  the  classical  examples.  A  remarkable  recent  one  is 
Mme.  Sophie  Radford  de  Meissner,  an  American  widow  of  a 
Russian  diplomat.  She  has  just  published  an  account  of  her 
experience  in  a  little  volume  entitled  There  are  no  Dead.  She 
believes  herself  in  constant  communication  by  audible  voices 
with  her  husband  and  son  and  others  who  have  died.  The  book 


262  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

abounds  in  the  orthodox  anthropomorphic  conceptions,  and  yet 
it  falls  in  with  what  perhaps  I  may  call  the  very  reasonable 
present-day  idea  of  Heaven  as  a  sublimated  earth — scenery, 
occupations,  and  all.  As  the  old  mixtures  from  the  Apoca- 
lypse, Milton,  Bunyan,  etc.,  were  believed  in  with  religious 
fervor,  the  replacing  of  them  strongly  suggests  outside  influ- 
ence ;  and  that  the  experience  is  so  general,  makes  the  sugges- 
tion stronger  still. 

But  Mme.  de  Meissner's  heaven  is  by  no  means  entirely  secu- 
larized. Her  controls  often  see  Christ,  and  have  frequent  re- 
ligious services,  and  the  angels  and  archangels  sing  with  them. 

I  give  a  few  passages : 

(Op.  cit.,  Foreword.)  "  There  is  no  attempt  at  anything  in 
the  way  of  '  test '  cases,  despite  the  fact  that  many  such  have 
been  shown  me,  though  never  in  reply  to  a  demand  for  the 
same.  Spontaneously  things  have  been  told  me,  either  for  my 
own  guidance,  or  for  that  of  friends  in  sorrow  and  despair;  and 
spontaneously  have  I  been  informed  of  things  that  have  after- 
ward come  to  pass;  but  any  attempt  at  forcing  communications 
in  regard  to  future  happenings  has  invariably  been  met  by  a  well 
deserved  rebuke  from  those  who  are  'given  charge'  over  all 
of  us." 

(Op.  cit.,  5.)  "You  all  think  so  wrongly  of  the  life  here — it 
differs  so  little  from  that  in  the  world,  except  in  that  it  is  so 
much  more  grand  and  full." 

This  is  directly  against  her  intense  orthodoxy. 

(Op.  cit.,  12.)  "  '  There  is  no  night  here — what  you  call  the 
night  is  the  best  time  of  all,  for  then  you  are  with  us.  As  soon 
as  you  are  asleep  your  Spirit  is  here,  and  we  sit  and  talk  either 
in  the  house  or  in  beautiful  gardens,  or  on  the  river's  brink.'  " 

(Op.  cit.,  23.)  "  (In  reading  a  book  of  Professor  Hyslop's,  I 
mentioned  'Rector's'  name  aloud,  and  he  at  once  responds:) 

"  '  Yes ;  I  am  here — do  you  want  anything  ? ' 

"  (I  tell  him  of  how  K.  F.  had  told  me  I  would  be  able  to  help 
others,  and  add  that  I  cannot  see  just  how  that  may  be.) 

"  A.  '  You  will  know  in  a  few  weeks.  You  will  be  much 
stronger,  and  will  see  them  soon.  It  will  come  by  prayer  and 
fasting.' " 

The  Titanic  went  down  April  14th.  On  the  17th  Mme.  de 
Meissner  thought  she  had  communications  from  W.  T.  Stead. 
On  the  morning  of  the  18th  she  thought  she  had  communica- 
tions from  Major  Butt.  It  was  not  till  the  evening  of  the 


Ch.  XVIII]         Mme.  de  Meissner's  Cases  263 

18th  that  newg  of  the  arrival  of  the  Carpathia  gave  her  any 
other  assurance  of  their  deaths  that  she  remembered  when 
writing.  But  of  course  during  the  interval,  the  papers  were 
full  of  wireless  messages  that  probably  mentioned  them.  For 
the  particulars  of  all  this,  I  shall  have  to  refer  you  to  the  book. 
On  reading  these  accounts,  the  habitual  student  is  apt  to  say 
to  himself:  "This  admirable  lady  is  more  gifted  with  emo- 
tional and  imaginative  power  than  with  dry-as-dust  judicial 
habits.  I  wonder  how  many  of  these  details  are  very  natural 
post  facto  imagination !  Certainly  her  imagination  sometimes 
supplies  pretty  wide  interpretations  of  other  incidents." 

I  give  the  following  as  illustrating  what  will  appear  to  many 
a  point  weak  enough  to  raise  questions  regarding  the  whole 
experience — and  it  is  not  the  only  one.  Yet  if  it  is  all  imagi- 
nation, it  is  at  least  a  graceful  bit,  and  there  are  many  more 
graceful  things  in  the  book.  It  will  sometimes  be  a  little  hard, 
though,  for  any  but  the  very  orthodox  to  sympathize  with  them. 
Madame  even  goes  so  far  as  to  have  the  mere  pronouncing  of 
a  sacred  name  break  up  very  trying  situations. 

Here  is  the  experience : 

(Op.  cit.,  61-2.)  "  October  2,  1902.  (Reading  in  the  Journal 
de  St.  Petersbourg  of  three  workmen  who  had  been  run  over  by 
an  express  train  in  Austria,  I  hear  these  unhappy  men  beg  me 
to  help  them — they  have  no  idea  where  they  are,  but  are  entirely 
in  the  dark.  Can  see  no  way  at  all — they  cannot  pray,  for  they 
never  did  that  in  their  lives,  and  do  not  know  how.) 

"  ('  Ask  God  to  help  you.') 

"  A.   '  Who  is  Oodf ' 

"  ('  Say :  "  Our  Father  Who  art  in  Heaven,"  after  me.') 

"  (This  they  do;  then  I  hear  an  exclamation,  and  the  words:) 

" '  Now  it  is  growing  lighter,  and  we  can  see  a  little.  Oh, 
don't  leave  us,  for  we  don't  know  at  all  where  to  go,  or  what 
to  do;  but — there  is  a  young  man  coming  toward  us,  and  it  gets 
lighter  as  he  comes  nearer ' 

"  (From  my  son)  '  Pray  for  these  poor  men — but  I  can  take 
them  only  a  little  way — yes,  they  can  have  work  if  they  want  it.' 

"  (Here  they  are  shown  a  garden  with  flowers,  and  they  say:) 

" '  No,  we  don't  know  anything  about  flowers — we  only  know 
how  to  work  on  the  rails.' 

"  (From  my  son)  '  I  cannot  show  them  that,  but  there  is  one 
here  who  can.' 

"  (From  the  men)  '  Ah,  here  comes  someone  who  we  see  will 
give  us  work.  Yes,  now  we  see  the  work  we  are  to  do;  and  we 


264  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

will  not  be  alone,  for  there  are  some  men  further  down  the  road, 
poor  workmen  like  ourselves,  and  we  can  talk  to  them  after  a 
while.  Yes,  now  we  are  at  work  here,  and  we  understand  that 
we  must  work  as  well  as  we  can  in  order  to  come  to  a  lighter 
and  brighter  place.'" 

Whatever  impressions  one  may  get  from  the  book,  there  is 
sure  to  be  among  them  one  that  whether  or  not  the  experiences 
are  all  pure  auto-suggestions,  they  are  a  source  of  much  happi- 
ness to  the  author  and,  apparently,  many  of  her  friends ;  and 
the  apparent  fact  that  no  harm  comes  from  them  suggests  a 
degree  of  genuineness.  All  such  matter  where  deliberate  de- 
ceit is  out  of  the  question,  is  worth  studying :  for  even  negative 
results  help  fix  the  boundaries  of  the  positive ;  and  that  there 
is  an  important  positive  of  some  sort,  whether  a  vast  addition 
to  our  general  Cosmic  Relations,  or  only  to  our  traditional 
psychology,  is  an  opinion  that  can  now  be  contradicted  only 
by  the  ignorant. 

From  Bartlett  (op.  cit.,  p.  62)  : 

"While  I  was  connected  with  Mr.  Foster  I  know  of  no  one 
stance  which  created  such  a  sensation,  and  the  reports  of  which 
were  so  widely  copied,  as  that  given  to  Mr.  C.  E.  De  Long,  of 
San  Francisco,  an  extended  account  of  which  appeared  in  the 
San  Francisco  Chronicle,  of  January  23,  1874. 

"  Mr.  De  Long  was  wholly  unknown  to  Foster.  They  all  sat 
down  to  the  table,  and  after  Foster  had  smoked  awhile  at  his 
cigar,  he  said :  '  I  can  only  get  one  message  to-night,  and  that 
is  for  a  person  named  Ida.  Do  either  of  you  know  who  Ida  is  ? ' 

"  Mr.  De  Long  looked  at  Foster  with  rather  a  startled  look, 
and  said,  '  Well,  yes,  I  rather  think  I  do.  My  wife's  name  is 
Ida.' 

" '  Well,'  said  Foster,  '  then  this  message  is  for  her,  and  it  is 
important.  But  she  will  have  to  come  here  and  receive  it.' 

"  The  next  evening  the  same  two,  accompanied  by  Mrs.  De 

Long,  were  ushered  into  Foster's  parlor After  Foster  had 

smoked  for  several  minutes  in  silence,  he  suddenly  said :  '  The 
same  message  comes  to  me.  It  is  for  Ida.  This  is  the  lady,  is 
it? '  he  asked,  as  of  the  spirit.  '  Oh,  you  will  write  the  message, 
will  you?  Well,  all  right,'  and  with  this  he  took  up  a  pen  and 
dashed  off  the  following: 

" '  To  my  daughter  Ida — Ten  years  ago  I  entrusted  a  large 
sum  of  money  to  Thomas  Madden  to  invest  for  me  in  certain 
lands.  After  my  death  he  failed  to  account  for  the  investment 
to  my  executors.  The  money  was  invested,  and  twelve  hundred 
and  fifty  acres  of  land  were  bought,  and  one-half  of  this  land 
now  belongs  to  you.  I  paid  Madden  on  account  of  my  share 


Ch.  XVIII]     The  Vineyard-Madden  Investment  265 

of  the  purchase  $650.    He  must  be  made  to  make  a  settlement. 

" '  Your  father, 

" ' VINEYARD.' 

"  Both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  De  Long  sat  and  heard  this  communica- 
tion read  with  astonished  faces.  Mrs.  De  Long . . .  was  terribly 
frightened . . .  for  she  knew  that  Foster  did  not  know  who  she 
was,  nor  who  her  father  might  have  been 

"  Mr.  De  Long . . .  next  day  called  on  Mr.  Madden  . . .  [and] 
asked  Mr.  Madden  if  there  was  not  yet  some  unsettled  business 
between  himself  and  the  estate  of  the  late  Mr.  Vineyard.  Mr. 

Madden  thought  for  a  moment,  and  then  he  said  there  was 

When  informed  that  Mrs.  De  Long  had  only  just  learned  of 
this  investment  of  her  father's,  Mr.  Madden  expressed  much 
surprise.  He  said  he  supposed  she  and  her  husband  and  the 
executors  knew  all  about  it,  but  were  simply  letting  the  matter 
rest  for  the  property  to  increase  in  value.  Mr.  Madden  then 
said  that  he  was  ready  to  make  a  settlement  at  any  time.  Thia 
was  readily  assented  to  by  Mr.  De  Long,  and  accordingly,  on 
Saturday  last,  Mr.  Madden  transferred  a  deed  for  625  acres 
of  the  land  to  Mrs.  De  Long 

"  Meanwhile  Foster  is  overrun  with  people  anxious  to  inter- 
view their  deceased  parents,  for  the  purpose  of  finding  out  if 
the  old  folks  are  quite  sure  that  their  estates  have  been  fully 
and  properly  settled." 

The  dramatic  features — the  letter,  etc.,  are  not  unlike  the 
dramatic  features  of  ordinary  dreams. '  All  could  have  been 
teloteropathy  from  Mr.  Madden's  mind.  But  if  so,  as  in 
many  similar  instances,  it  must  have  been  communicated  in- 
voluntarily. 

Visions  Apparently  from  the  Dead 

The  records  contain  perhaps  more  visions  apparently  from 
the  dead  than  mere  communications  of  unknown  verifiable 
intelligence.  This  of  course  generated  the  idea  that  often  the 
personages  are  present  in  a  "  spiritual "  body  palpable  enough 
to  affect  the  eye,  but  telesthesia  would  be  enough. 

In  the  general  gossip  regarding  Foster,  the  feature  that 
decided  me  to  go  to  him  was  my  being  told  by  Professor 
Pumpelly  that  Foster  had  announced  to  him  the  death,  too 
recent  to  be  reported  by  any  means  then  known,  of  a  friend 
in  China  whom,  from  Foster's  description,  Professor  Pum- 
pelly at  once  recognized  as  Sir  F.  B.  He  also  told  me  that 
news  of  the  death  was  received  through  ordinary  channels  in 
due  time  after  Foster  had  told  him  of  it. 


266  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

This  would  be  interpreted  by  skeptical  experts  as  a  case 
of  teloteropathy.  They  would  say  that  plenty  of  people  in 
China  knew  of  Sir  F/s  death,  and  Foster  unconsciously  tapped 
their  minds,  being  stimulated  thereto  by  a  previous  tapping 
of  Professor  Pumpelly's  mind;  in  other  words,  Professor 
Pumpelly's  presence  put  Foster's  mind  in  sympathetic  con- 
nection with  minds  holding  knowledge  of  special  interest  to 
Professor  Pumpelly.  The  men  who  have  given  incomparably 
more  attention  to  the  subject  than  have  any  others — Myers 
and  Hodgson — one  of  whom  began  his  studies  as  a  thorough 
skeptic,  would  say  that  the  spirit  of  Sir  F.  gave  the  im- 
pression for  his  friend  to  Foster.  My  impression,  for  which 
reasons  will  appear  as  we  proceed,  is  that  some  sort  of  psychic 
record  of  all  facts  pervades  the  universe,  and  that  Foster 
caught  up  this  one  and  others  of  interest  to  his  sitters.* 

(Pr.  V,  408f.)  From  the  Eev.  G.  M.  Tandy,  Vicar  of 
West- Ward,  near  Wigton,  Cumberland. 

"When  at  Loweswater,  I  one  day  called  upon  a  friend,  who 
said,  'You  do  not  see  many  newspapers;  take  one  of  those 
lying  there.'  I  accordingly  took  up  a  newspaper,  bound  with 
a  wrapper,  put  it  into  my  pocket,  and  walked  home. 

"  In  the  evening  I  was  writing,  and,  wanting  to  refer  to  a 
book,  went  into  another  room  where  my  books  were.  I  placed 
the  candle  on  a  ledge  of  the  bookcase,  took  down  a  book,  and 
found  the  passage  I  wanted,  when,  happening  to  look  towards 
the  window,  which  was  opposite  to  the  bookcase,  I  saw  through 
the  window  the  face  of  an  old  friend  whom  I  had  known  well 
at  Cambridge,  but  had  not  seen  for  ten  years  or  more,  Canon 
Kobinson  (of  the  Charity  and  School  Commission).  I  was  so 
sure  I  saw  him  that  I  went  out  to  look  for  him,  but  could 
find  no  trace  of  him. 

"  I  went  back  into  the  house  and  thought  I  would  take  a  look 
at  my  newspaper.  I  tore  off  the  wrapper,  unfolded  the  paper, 
and  the  first  piece  of  news  that  I  saw  was  the  death  of  Canon 
Robinson ! . . .  I  had  not  heard  or  read  of  his  illness,  or  death, 
and  there  was  nothing  in  the  passage  of  the  book  I  was  reading 
to  lead  me  to  think  of  him." 

Miss  Hosmer,  the  sculptor,  gives  the  following  (Harriet 
Hosmer:  Letters  and  Memories.  New  York,  1912)  : 

*  Since  this  book  and  its  index  were  made  up  Professor  Pumpelly  tells 
me  that  in  the  nearly  fifty  years  since  this  occurrence,  our  memories  of 
it  have  grown  apart.  So  it  is  best  to  regard  it  only  as  a  "hypothetical 


Ch.  XVIII]  Miss  Hosmer's  Maid  267 

"  When  I  was  living  in  Rome  I  had  for  several  years  a  maid 

named  Rosa,  to  whom  I  became  much  attached 1  was  greatly 

distressed  when  she  became  ill  with  consumption  and  had  to 
leave  me.  I  used  to  call  frequently  to  see  her ...  and  on  one 
occasion  she  expressed  a  desire  for  a  certain  kind  of  wine.  I 

told  her  I  would  bring  it  to  her  the  next  morning During 

the  rest  of  the  afternoon  I  was  busy  in  my  studio,  and  do  not 
remember  that  Rosa  was  in  my  thoughts  after  I  parted  from 
her.  I  retired  to  bed  in  good  health  and  in  a  quiet  frame  of 
mind.  I  always  sleep  with  my  doors  locked,  and  in  my  bed- 
room in  Rome  there  were  two  doors;  the  key  to  one  my  maid 
kept,  and  the  other  was  turned  on  the  inside.  A  tall  screen 
stood  around  my  bed.  I  awoke  early  the  morning  after  my 
visit  to  Rosa  and  heard  the  clock  in  the  library  next,  distinctly 
strike  five,  and  just  then  I  was  conscious  of  some  presence  in 
the  room,  back  of  the  screen.  I  asked  if  anyone  was  there, 
when  Rosa  appeared  in  front  of  the  screen  and  said,  '  Adesso 
sono  contento,  adesso  sono  felice '  (Now  I  am  content,  now  I 
am  happy).  For  the  moment  it  did  not  seem  strange,  I  felt 
as  though  everything  was  as  it  had  been. ...  In  a  flash  she  was 
gone.  I  sprang  out  of  bed.  There  was  no  Rosa  there. ...  In 
the  first  moment  of  surprise  and  bewilderment  I  did  not  reflect 
that  the  door  was  locked 

"At  breakfast  I  mentioned  the  apparition  to  my  French 
landlady,  and  she  ridiculed  the  idea  as  being  anything  more 

than  the  fantasy  of  an  excited  brain Instead  of  going  to 

see  Rosa  after  breakfast,  I  sent  to  inquire,  for  I  felt  a  strong 
premonition  that  she  was  dead.  The  messenger  returned,  say- 
ing Rosa  had  died  at  five  o'clock.  When  I  told  Mr.  Gladstone 
of  this ...  he  said  he  firmly  believed  in  a  magnetic  current, 
action  of  one  mind  upon  another,  or  whatever  you  choose  to 
call  it,  but  could  not  believe  ghosts  had  yet  the  power  of  speech. 
However,  to  me  this  occurrence  is  as  much  of  a  reality  as  any 
experience  of  my  life. 

"  Then,  too,  I  have  had  many  strange  flashes  of  inner  vision 
in  seeing  articles  that  were  lost.  I  have  never  been  able  to 
produce  them  by  reasoning  or  strong  desire.  They  have  come 
literally  in  a  flash " 

If  it  were  possible  I  should  like  to  know  if  Miss  Hosmer 
really  "  awoke "  and  "  sprang  out  of  bed."  The  vast  ma- 
jority of  visions  occur  in  bed  and  are  probably  dreams. 

Here  is  one  of  the  most  impressive  visions  on  record.  As  the 
percipient  was  not  in  bed  it  was  probably  not  an  ordinary 
dream,  though  I  do  not  see  that  it  is  of  much  consequence 
whether  it  was  or  not.  I  put  it  here  among  visions  appar- 
ently caused  by  the  dead,  but  it  may  be  a  true  telopsis. 


268  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

Mrs.  Sidgwick  treats  it  as  such  in  a  valuable  article  On 
the  Evidence  for  Clairvoyance  in  Pr.  VII.  If  it  was  a 
telopsis,  apparently  it  remained  latent  from  3  A.M.  until 
somewhere  about  9  or  10,  meanwhile  causing  the  depres- 
sion with  which  the  percipient  awoke.  If  it  did  not  remain 
latent,  there  are  at  least  two  guesses  open — that  it  took  time 
to  come  telepathically  from  some  witness,  or  that  it  was  tel- 
epathed  by  a  postcarnate  soul.  (Pr.  VII,  33f.) : 

"  Statement  of  Mr.  A.  B.  Wood. 

"On  October  24th,  1889,  Edmund  Dunn,  brother  of  Mrs. 
Agnes  Paquet,  was  serving  as  fireman  on  the  tug  Wolf,  a  small 
steamer  engaged  in  towing  vessels  in  Chicago  Harbor.  At 
about  three  o'clock  A.M.,  the  tug  fastened  to  a  vessel,  inside  the 
piers,  to  tow  her  up  the  river.  While  adjusting  the  towline 
Mr.  Dunn  fell  or  was  thrown  overboard  by  the  towline,  and 

drowned " 

"  Mrs.  Paquet's  Statement. 

"  I  arose  about  the  usual  hour  on  the  morning  of  the  accident, 
probably  about  six  o'clock.  I  had  slept  well  throughout  the 
night,  had  no  dreams  or  sudden  awakenings.  I  awoke  feeling 
gloomy  and  depressed,  which  feeling  I  could  not  shake  off. 
After . . .  [two  or  three  hours.  H.  H.]  ...  I  went  into  the 
pantry,  took  down  the  tea  canister,  and  as  I  turned  around  my 
brother  Edmund — or  his  exact  image — stood  before  me  and 
only  a  few  feet  away.  The  apparition  stood  with  back  toward 
me,  or,  rather,  partially  so,  and  was  in  the  act  of  falling  for- 
ward— away  from  me — seemingly  impelled  by  two  ropes  or  a 
loop  of  rope  drawing  against  his  legs.  The  vision  lasted  but 
a  moment,  disappearing  over  a  low  railing  or  bulwark,  but  was 
very  distinct.  I  dropped  the  tea,  clasped  my  hands  to  my  face, 
and  exclaimed,  '  My  God !  Ed.  is  drowned.' 

"  At  about  half -past  ten  A.M.  my  husband  received  a  telegram 
from  Chicago,  announcing  the  drowning  of  my  brother.  When 
he  arrived  home  he  said  to  me,  '  Ed.  is  sick  in  hospital  at 
Chicago;  I  have  just  received  a  telegram,'  to  which  I  replied, 
'  Ed.  is  drowned ;  I  saw  him  go  overboard.'  I  then  gave  him 
a  minute  description  of  what  I  had  seen.  I  stated  that  my 
brother,  as  I  saw  him,  was  bareheaded,  had  on  a  heavy  blue 
sailor's  shirt,  no  coat,  and  that  he  went  over  the  rail  or  bulwark. 
I  noticed  that  his  pants'  legs  were  rolled  up  enough  to  show 
the  white  lining  inside. 

"I  am  not  nervous,  and  neither  before  nor  since  have  I  had 
any  experience  in  the  least  degree  similar  to  that  above  related. 

"  My  brother  was  not  subject  to  fainting  or  vertigo 

"  AGNES  PAQUET." 


Ch.  XVIII]     Mrs.  Paquet's  Drowned  Brother  269 

"  Mr.  Paquet's  Statement. 

" Wishing  to  break  the  force  of  the  sad  news  I  had  to 

convey  to  my  wife,  I  said  to  her :  '  Ed.  is  sick  in  hospital  at 
Chicago;  I  have  just  received  a  telegram.'  To  which  she  re- 
plied :  '  Ed.  is  drowned ;  I  saw  him  go  overboard.' 

"  I  started  at  once  for  Chicago,  and  when  I  arrived  there  I 
found  the  appearance  of  that  part  of  the  vessel  described  by 
my  wife  to  be  exactly  as  she  had  described  it,  though  she  had 
never  seen  the  vessel;  and  the  crew  verified  my  wife's  de- 
scription of  her  brother's  dress,  &c.,  except  that  they  thought 
that  he  had  his  hat  on  at  the  time  of  the  accident.  They  said 
that  Mr.  Dunn  had  purchased  a  pair  of  pants  a  few  days  before 
the  accident  occurred,  and  as  they  were  a  trifle  long  before, 
wrinkling  at  the  knees,  he  had  worn  them  rolled  up,  showing 
the  white  lining  as  seen  by  my  wife." 

Considerable  confirmatory  matter  is  added. 

Colonel  H.,  vouched  for  by  Mr.  Gurney,  tells  (Pr.  V,  412) : 

" how,  nearly  twenty-three  years  before,  he  had  formed  a 

friendship  with  two  brother  subalterns,  J.  P.  and  J.  8.,  and 
how  his  intercourse  with  J.  P.  had  been  continued  at  intervals 
up  to  the  time  of  the  Transvaal  war,  when  J.  P.  was  ordered 
out  on  the  staff.  J.  S.  was  already  on  the  scene  of  action. 
Both  had  now  attained  major's  rank;  the  narrator  himself  had 
left  the  service  some  years  previously. 

"  On  the  morning  that  J.  P.  was  leaving  London,  to  embark 
for  the  Cape,  he  invited  the  narrator  to  breakfast  with  him  at 
the  club,  and  they  finally  parted  at  the  club-door. 

" '  Good-bye,  old  fellow,'  I  said,  '  we  shall  meet  again,  I  hope/ 

"'Yes,'  he  said,  'we  shall  meet  again.' 

"I  can  see  him  now,  as  he  stood,  smart  and  erect,  with  his 
bright  black  eyes  looking  intently  into  mine.  A  wave  of  the 
hand,  as  the  hansom  whirled  him  off,  and  he  was  gone. 

"The  Transvaal  war  was  at  its  height.  One  night...! 

awoke  with  a  start Standing  by  my  bed,  between  me  and 

the  chest  of  drawers,  I  saw  a  figure,  which,  in  spite  of  the 
unwonted  dress — unwonted,  at  least,  to  me — and  of  a  full  black 
beard,  I  at  once  recognized  as  that  of  my  old  brother-officer. . . . 
I  started  from  sleep,  and  sat  up  in  bed  looking  at  him.  His 
face  was  pale,  but  his  bright  black  eyes  shone  as  keenly  as 
when,  a  year  and  a  half  before,  they  had  looked  upon  me  as 
he  stood  with  one  foot  on  the  hansom,  bidding  me  adieu. 

"  Fully  impressed  for  the  brief  moment  that  we  were  sta- 
tioned together  at  C in  Ireland  or  somewhere,  and  thinking 

I  was  in  my  barrack-room,  I  said,  '  Hallo !  P.,  am  I  late  for 
parade?'  P.  looked  at  me  steadily,  and  replied,  'I'm  shot.' 

"  '  Shot! '  I  exclaimed.    '  Good  God!  how  and  where? ' 


270  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

" '  Through  the  lunge/  replied  P.,  and  as  he  spoke  his  right 
hand  moved  slowly  up  the  breast,  until  the  fingers  rested  over 
the  right  lung. 

" '  What  were  you  doing  ? '  I  asked. 

" '  The  General  sent  me  forward,'  he  answered,  and  the  right 
hand  left  the  breast  to  move  slowly  to  the  front,  pointing  over 
my  head  to  the  window,  and  at  the  same  moment  the  figure 
melted  away.  I  rubbed  my  eyes,  to  make  sure  I  was  not  dream- 
ing, and  sprang  out  of  bed.  It  was  then  4.10  A.M.  by  the  clock 
on  my  mantelpiece. 

" The  [second]  morning  I ...  seized  with  avidity  the 

first  paper  that  came  to  hand. . . .  My  eye  fell  at  once  on  the 
brief  lines  that  told  of  the  battle  of  Lang's  Neck,  and  on  the 
list  of  killed,  foremost  among  them  all  being  poor  J.  P. 
I  noted  the  time  the  battle  was  fought,  calculated  it  with  the 
hour  at  which  I  had  seen  the  figure,  and  found  that  it  almost 
coincided. 

" About  six  months  afterwards  ...  an  officer  who  was 

at  the  battle  of  Lang's  Neck . . .  confirmed  every  detail 

More  than  a  year  after  the  occurrence ...  on  my  asking  J.  S. 

if  he  had  heard  how  poor  P was  shot,  he  replied,  '  Just 

here,'  and  his  fingers  traveled  up  his  breast,  exactly  as  the 
fingers  of  the  figure  had  done,  until  they  rested  on  the  very 
spot  over  the  right  lung." 

The  following  narrative  was  communicated  by  Mr.  Edward 
A.  Goodall,  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Painters  in  Water  Colors, 
London  (Pr.  V,  453) : 

"  At  midsummer,  1869,  I  left  London  for  Naples Arrived 

at  the  hotel  [in  a  village  near  by.  H.H.]  and  while  sitting  per- 
fectly still  in  my  saddle  talking  to  the  landlady,  the  donkey  went 
down  upon  his  knees  as  if  he  had  been  shot  or  struck  by  light- 
ning, throwing  me  over  his  head  upon  the  lava  pavement 

"  It  must  have  been  on  my  third  or  fourth  night,  and  about 
the  middle  of  it,  when  I  awoke,  as  it  seemed,  at  the  sound  of 
my  own  voice,  saying :  '  I  know  I  have  lost  my  dearest  little 
May.'  Another  voice,  which  I  in  no  way  recognized,  answered: 
'No,  not  May,  but  your  youngest  boy.' 

"  The  distinctness  and  solemnity  of  the  voice  made  such  a 
distressing  impression  upon  me  that  I  slept  no  more.  I  got 
up  at  daybreak,  and  went  out,  noticing  for  the  first  time  tele- 
graph-poles and  wires. 

"Without  delay  I  communicated  with  the  postmaster  at 
Naples,  and  by  next  boat  received  two  letters  from  home.  I 
opened  them  according  to  dates  outside.  The  first  told  me  that 
my  youngest  boy  was  taken  suddenly  ill;  the  second,  that  he 
was  dead. 


Ch.  XVIII]      Animals  Seem  to  See  Visions  271 

"  Neither  on  his  account  nor  on  that  of  any  of  my  family  had 
I  any  cause  for  uneasiness.  All  were  quite  well  on  my  taking 
leare  of  them  so  lately.  My  impression  ever  since  has  been 
that  the  time  of  the  death  coincided  as  nearly  as  we  could  judge 
with  the  time  of  my  accident. 

"  Mr.  Goodall  thinks  that  the  mule's  sudden  fall — otherwise 
inexplicable — may  have  been  due  to  terror  at  some  apparition 
of  the  dying  child.  When  this  paper  was  read  to  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research,  Mr.  Pearsall  Smith  gave  the  following 
apparently  parallel  instance: — 

"  A  prominent  barrister  at  Philadelphia  . . .  had  parted,  under 
painful  circumstances  of  controversy,  with  a  friend  who  had 
later  gone  to  Italy  for  his  health.  Afterwards,  while  camping 
out  in  the  wilds  of  the  Adirondacks,  one  day  his  horse  became 
excited  and  refused  to  advance  when  urged.  While  engaged 
in  the  contest  with  the  horse,  the  barrister  saw  before  him 
the  apparition  of  his  friend  with  blood  pouring  from  his 
mouth,  and  in  an  interval  of  the  effusion  he  heard  him  say,  '/ 
have  nothing  against  you.'  Soon  afterwards  he  heard  that 
his  friend  had  at  that  time  died  during  a  discharge  of  blood 
from  the  lungs." 

I  might  properly  include  here,  under  apparent  telepathy 
from  the  dead,  some  more  remarkable  dream  visions  which  I 
prefer  to  leave  for  a  special  treatment  of  dreams.  They 
will  be  found  in  Chapter  LV. 

Miscellaneous  Tele  psychoses  Without  Assignable  Source 

Here  is  a  vision  pure  and  simple  that  is  interesting,  but 
suggests  nothing  and  explains  nothing,  and  is  one  of  a  dozen 
that  cropped  up  one  night  around  the  table  at  the  Authors' 
Club,  as  they  will  crop  up  around  any  table  if  the  conversa- 
tion stimulates  them.  This  one  was  given  me  by  Dr.  Rossiter 
Johnson,  and  is  unusual  in  not  occurring  while  the  percipient 
was  in  bed,  in  involving  the  sense  of  hearing  as  well  as  that 
of  sight,  and  in  having  two  witnesses.  I  don't  trouble  to  get 
the  affirmation  of  the  second  one :  the  time  when  confirmation 
of  a  respectable  witness  is  needed  in  these  matters  is  past. 

Dr.  Johnson  writes  that  in  August,  1895,  near  Amagansett, 
Long  Island,  he  was  driving  with  his  secretary  in  a  neigh- 
borhood known  as  Hardscrabble. 

"  We  traversed  a  piece  of  the  road  that  lies  between  two 
turns.  First  it  turns  at  right  angles  to  the  north,  passes  a 
single  farmhouse,  and  after  a  course  of  three  or  four  hundred 


272  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

yards,  turns  at  right  angles  to  the  east.  When  we  were  in 
this  part  of  the  road,  it  was  about  half -past  nine,  and  the  moon 
had  risen.  After  we  had  passed  the  farmhouse  (which  was 
completely  dark,  as  if  all  the  inmates  had  gone  to  bed),  we 
were  skirting  a  large  field  on  the  east  side  of  the  road,  when, 
just  the  other  side  of  the  fence,  suddenly  appeared  a  spirited 
team  attached  to  a  farm  wagon,  not  at  all  like  the  buggy  we 
were  in,  going  in  the  same  direction  that  we  were  going,  but 
much  faster.  It  appeared  that  the  field  was  not  cultivated  very 
close  to  the  fence,  and  there  was  a  belt  of  bushes,  with  weeds 
or  grass  (wild  growth  of  some  sort) ;  and  the  hoofs  of  the 
horses  and  wheels  of  the  wagon  were  distinctly  heard  crashing 
through  this.  At  the  moment  when  the  wagon  was  abreast  of 
our  carriage,  the  distance  between  them  could  not  have  been 
much  more  than  a  dozen  yards.  The  horses  and  wagon  were 
perfectly  distinct.  I  could  not  say  that  I  saw  any  driver.  They 
went  at  a  very  rapid  rate  till  they  reached  the  corner  of  the 
field,  and  then  disappeared.  Their  whole  course  while  they 
were  visible  to  me  was  about  one  hundred  yards.  When  we 
arrived  at  the  turn  of  the  road,  they  were  nowhere  in  sight. 
I  said  to  my  secretary :  '  Did  you  see  anything  ? '  and  in  answer 
she  described  exactly  what  I  had  seen. 

"  As  the  apparition  was  between  us  and  the  moon,  there 
could  be  no  possibility  of  seeing  on  that  side  a  shadow  of  the 
buggy.  I  could  recall  nothing  in  my  whole  experience  that 
could  have  suggested  such  an  apparition;  neither  could  my 
secretary." 

Miss  Hosmer,  the  sculptor,  tells  the  following  three  stories 
in  the  biography  already  cited: 

" Lady  A.  wears  a  curious  gold  ring  designed  by  her 

husband.  When  taken  from  the  finger  it  can  be  straightened 
into  a  key 

"  All  of  her  valuables,  from  jewel  cases  to  her  writing  room, 
where  many  important  papers  are  kept,  are  fitted  with  locks 
for  this  key.  One  morning  she  came  into  my  room  much 
distressed,  saying  she  could  not  find  her  ring  key. ...  I  saw  the 
ring  key,  in  my  mind's  eye,  plainly  on  the  table  in  her  daugh- 
ter's apartment The  ring  was  found  just  where  I  saw  it." 

This  may  have  been  a  stored  up  memory,  but  how  about 
this? 

"  On  another  occasion  Lady  A.  could  not  find  a  despatch, 
box  containing  valuable  papers. ...  A  vision  of  it  flashed  across 
my  brain.  I  said,  'It  is  useless  to  search  here,  the  box  is  at 
Drummond's  bank,  in  one  of  your  large  boxes.' ...  I  went  to 


Ch.  XVIII]  Prophetic  Visions  273 

the  bank I  asked  the  clerk  to  bring  out  his  ledger  containing 

the  list  of  boxes. . . .  When  I  ran  my  hand  down  the  list  (there 
were   seren)    it   stopped   at   five.    Number   five   was    brought 

from  the  vault  into  the  private  room After  taking  out  all 

the  carefully  packed  articles  I  was  rewarded  by  finding  the 

lost  box  at  the  very  bottom 

"  How  and  why  these  visions  come  is,  as  yet,  an  unknown 
science,  but  I  firmly  believe  it  will  be  made  clear  some  time, 
perhaps  at  no  distant  day." 

And  this? 

"  Shortly  after  dinner  I  made  the  original  observation  that 
I  would  take  possession  of  the  sofa  and  have  '  forty  winks.'  I 
had  just  lain  down  when  I  was  moved  to  say,  '  I  have  such  a 
feeling  of  a  carriage  accident.'  I  then  dozed  off  for  about 
ten  minutes . . .  when  a  tremendous  crash  under  my  windows, 
in  the  Cortile  of  the  Barberini  Palace,  startled  us  both.  Up  I 
flew  to  the  nearest  window,  and  there  was  the  Princess  Or- 
aini's  carriage,  upside  down,  on  a  pile  of  bricks,  which  in  true 
Italian  fashion  had  been  left  right  in  the  driveway,  with  no 
lantern." 

Here  are  some  more  incidents  that  our  classification  is  not 
broad  enough  to  cover.  Lake  the  last  from  Miss  Hosmer,  they 
open  up  the  question  of  prophecy,  and  that  opens  up  the 
question  of  determinism;  and  that  I  have  always  considered 
too  tough  to  be  handled  by  me— or  anybody  else. 

A  few  years  since,  a  young  woman  had  a  sitting  with  an 
obscure  medium  in  Cambridge,  who  was  under  investigation 
by  James.  She  told  her  sitter :  "  You  will  lead  thousands." 
A  series  of  accidents  led  the  young  woman  to  start  an  en- 
tirely new  charity,  and  she  has  brought  it  to  the  point  where 
she  is  literally  "  leading  thousands."  These  facts  are  in  my 
personal  knowledge,  except  as  I  depend  on  testimony  regard- 
ing the  sitting. 

Many  years  ago  another  young  woman,  with  an  older 
friend,  went,  as  a  lark,  to  consult  a  negro  woman  who  was 
"  telling  fortunes  "  in  New  York.  To  the  young  woman  the 
fortune-teller  said :  "I  see  books,  books,  everywhere — books 
in  piles!"  A  year  or  two  later  the  young  woman  married 
a  young  law  student,  whom  she  did  not  know  at  the 
time  of  the  "fortune-telling,"  and  who  after  the  marriage 
became  a  publisher  and  the  owner  of  many  "  piles  of  books." 
I  can  vouch  for  the  story:  for  I  was  the  young  man. 


274  Recent  Telepathic  Sensitives    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

My  last  extract  under  this  head  will  be  from  Foster,  and 
I  want  to  say  an  additional  word  about  him  here.  After 
witnessing  what  he  unquestionably  did  in  my  presence,  what 
he  is  alleged  to  have  done  in  the  presence  of  others  appears 
no  more  incredible  than  what  I  knew  him  to  do  would  have 
appeared  before  its  actuality  was  experienced. 

The  teller  of  the  very  big  Foster  stories,  after  his  long 
observation  of  Foster,  shows  himself  in  the  following  ex- 
tracts (op.  cit.,  p.  59) : 

"I  question  whether  Foster,  or  any  other  medium,  ever  pre- 
dicted anything  of  value  as  regards  the  future.  If  in  any  large 
degree  it  were  possible,  it  would  seem  a  violation  of  law  either 
natural  or  spiritual 

"  Is  it  better  to  know  aught  of  the  future  ?  Have  we  not 
care  enough  with  the  present? 

"  Mr.  Foster's  power  was  astonishing  because  unusual,  but 
it  was  limited. . . .  Although  I  have  received  many  remarkable 
tests,  and  what  to  the  ordinary  spiritualist  would  be  proof 
positive  of  direct  communication  between  this  and  the  spirit 
life,  I  am  still  skeptical.  The  communications  were  never 
decided  enough.  It  seems  to  me,  if  it  were  true,  such  a  great 
truth  would  be  known  and  accepted  by  all  mankind.  Spirit 
telephone  and  telegraphy  seem  to  work  unsatisfactorily — a  thick 
veil  seems  to  hang  between.  I  feel  that  there  is  a  gulf,  a 
barrier,  a  dense  fog,  that  will  not  dissipate." 

Yet  in  the  face  of  this  Bartlett  gives  the  following  (op. 
cit.,  p.  60)  : 

"  We  met  an  impulsive  dashing  young  man,  by  the  name  of 
Armijo,  at  Charpiot's  Hotel,  in  Denver,  Colo He  was  in- 
clined to  be  a  little  abusive,  and,  although  possibly  not  intend- 
ing to  do  so,  was  almost  insulting.  He  intimated  the  whole 
thing  was  a  fraud ;  and  finally  said  he  would  bet  a  large  amount 
that  Mr.  Foster  could  not  tell  anything  that  was  not  in  his 
own  mind;  could  not  tell  anything  which  the  future  would 
verify.  Mr.  Foster  had  borne  with  him  very  patiently,  but 
showed  that  he  was  somewhat  vexed.  Suddenly  he  said,  rather 
excitedly,  '  I  can  tell  you  something  that  will  happen  to  you 
which  is  very  painful,  if  I  choose,  but  I  do  not  care  to  give 
you  pain.'  Armijo  immediately  defied  him  and  said,  '  That  is 
all  stuff.'  Finally  Foster  said,  'Well,  young  man,  you  will 
"blow  your  brains  out  inside  of  three  months.'  And  sure 
enough,  in  a  few  weeks,  picking  up  the  Denver  Rocky  Mountain 
News,  we  read  as  follows: 

"'Sad  suicide.     P.   C.   Armijo,  the   sheep  owner,   suicides. 


Ch.  XVIII]    Prophecies  Tend  to  Realize  Themselves      275 

He  puts  a  bullet  through  his  heart.    LOTC  the  cause  of  the 
rash  act.    The  end  of  a  promising  life.' " 

Bartlett  very  wisely  comments: 

"  It  is  my  opinion  in  this  instance  that  Mr.  Foster  made  a 
mistake.  He  should  have  controlled  his  temper,  as  I  am  quite 
sure  no  good  ever  comes  from  giving  vent  to  such  impressions. 
And,  although  after  the  stance  the  young  man  laughed  and 
ridiculed  the  prediction,  still  is  it  not  possible  that  it  might 
have  preyed  upon  his  excitable  mind  until  he  became  crazed? 
Or  was  his  suicide  the  natural  course  of  events?  The  account 
in  the  paper  referred  to  the  '  Foster  prophecy.' " 

We  have  now  reached  the  end  of  my  space  for  phenomena 
tentatively  accounted  for  by  telepathy,  telopsis,  and  telakousis. 
Many  of  the  most  intelligent  spiritists  would  not  confidently 
lay  those  we  have  had  to  the  charge  of  spirits,  but  there  are 
other  phenomena  which  a  few  of  the  best  minds  of  the  age 
attribute  to  intelligences  that  have  survived  the  body.  Be- 
fore going  to  this  latter  class,  however,  it  may  be  well  to  do 
what  we  can  to  correlate  with  existing  knowledge  what  we 
have  already  been  over,  especially  as  our  attempts  may  enable 
us  to  grope  more  intelligently  along  the  still  mistier  way 
before  us. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
SUGGESTED  CORRELATIONS  OF  TELEPATHY 

AMONG  the  chaos  of  opinions  called  forth  by  the  strange 
phenomena  we  have  been  considering,  there  is  at  least  one 
on  which  probably  all  critics  agree — that  our  old  conceptions 
of  the  range  of  mind  and  the  connection  between  minds  must 
be  broadened.  Our  minds  are  now  demonstrated  to  flow  into 
each  other  with  a  freedom  not  realized  before  the  latter  part 
of  the  last  century.  But  as  abnormal  and  exceptional,  such 
things  had  been  fancied,  and  perhaps  exceptionally  experi- 
enced, from  the  remotest  tradition.  It  had  long  been  sus- 
pected, and  by  some  persons  believed,  that,  under  stress  of 
great  emotion,  some  souls  could  impress  some  sympathetic 
souls  at  a  distance;  and  writers  of  fiction  had  occasionally 
represented  such  occurrences,  but  they  were  regarded  as  in 
the  regions  of  romance,  possible,  if  at  all,  only  to  almost 
superhuman  powers,  and  subjects  of  almost  reverential  awe. 
Whatever  their  bases,  until  lately  the  modern  mind  has 
generally  regarded  them  as  only  of  the  confused  limbo  of 
myth  and  fancy. 

For  only  about  thirty  years  has  anything  of  the  kind  been 
accepted  as  fact,  and  been  placed  under  scientific  observation 
and  classification.  It  is  now  established  that  such  communi- 
cation is  frequent  between  persons  of  apparently  all  degrees  of 
intelligence,  culture,  and  character,  provided  they  be  endowed, 
as  many  are,  with  a  certain  sensibility  which  is  as  yet  some- 
what undefined,  and  does  not  seem  to  depend  upon  the  posses- 
sion of  any  one  of,  or  group  of,  the  said  varieties  of  intelli- 
gence, culture,  or  character.  In  other  words,  as  I  have  already 
said,  and  probably  will  say  more  than  once  again,  it  looks  as 
if  mind,  from  single  ideas  up  to  whole  personalities — from 
faint  impressions  like  Foster's  of  my  pearl-oyster — up  to  clear 
impressions  of  individualities,  were  floating  about  the  universe, 
from  all  sorts  of  places  into  all  sorts  of  places,  just  as  freely 
276 


Ch.  XIX]  Telepathy  and  Hypnosis  277 

as  motion  floats  from  muscle  to  electric  battery,  to  heat,  to 
light,  to  vegetable  nutrition,  and  back  into  muscle — or  as 
oxygen  floats  from  water  to  iron  rust,  to  vegetable,  to  blood, 
to  the  expired  breath — and  back  to  iron  rust. 

Moreover,  it  looks  as  if  each  person  were  the  center  of  a 
lot  of  these  floating  ideas,  and  that  individuals  pick  them  up 
in  all  ways  and  degrees,  from  the  cause  of  the  babe's  mys- 
terious smile  apparently  at  nothing  at  all,  up  to  the  sources 
of  our  best  dreams ;  and  from  impressions  like  those  seized  by 
Foster  from  pretty  much  everything  going,  up  to  those  aggre- 
gations of  thought,  sensibility,  and  will  which  apparently 
accrete  to  themselves  bodies,  and  then  leave  them,  and  which  it 
seems  the  purpose  and  justification  of  the  universe  to  evolve. 

Some  leading  students  claim  that  although  most  people 
do  not  show  any  telesthesia,  we  all  have  it  subliminally  in 
some  degree,  but  that  only  the  sensitives  manifest  it  apprecia- 
bly. As  it  is  not  "  at  home  "  at  all  times  to  all  comers,  they 
say  that  when  not  at  home  it  is  beneath  the  threshold — sub- 
liminal— as  already  explained.  And  when  anybody  does  any- 
thing psychologically  queer  and  smarter  (American  "  smart ") 
than  most  folks  can  do,  they  generally  charge  it  up  to  his 
subliminal  self.  As  far  as  yet  used,  the  phrase  seems  to  me 
something  to  look  wise  over,  and  use  as  a  scrap-basket  for 
anything  you  don't  understand,  and  want  to  have  folks  (per- 
haps including  yourself)  think  you  do. 

But  perhaps  we  can  make  this  subliminal  self,  or  whatever 
else  you  see  fit  to  call  it,  something  more  than  a  mere  name 
for  the  unknown  faculties  which  accomplish  the  mysterious 
results. 

Granting,  as  we  must,  that  there  is  something— call  it  what 
you  will — that  does  these  queer  things,  the  real  question  is: 
what  makes  it  do  them — what  is  the  modus  operandi  of  it 
all?  Now  for  a  guess:  anybody  who  claims  to  do  more  than 
guess  in  these  regions  is  a  suspicious  character. 

Telepathy  and  Hypnosis 

The  way  to  correlate  the  unknown  with  the  known  is  to 
seek  points  of  resemblance.  Examination  sometimes  discloses 
enough  between  the  matter  under  investigation  and  familiar 


278    Suggested  Correlations  of  Telepathy    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

things,  to  group  it  with  them.  In  the  woods  you  hear  an  ob- 
ject stirring  in  the  bushes.  It  eludes  you  so  that  you  can't  tell 
at  first  whether  it  is  reptile,  bird,  or  quadruped.  You  catch 
a  glimpse  of  a  brown  surface  as  big  as  your  hand,  then  you 
know  it  is  either  bird  or  beast;  for  there  is  no  reptile  in 
that  region  who  could  make  such  a  display.  Your  next 
glimpse  shows  that  it  has  feathers,  not  fur ;  and  so  by  getting 
particular  by  particular,  you  correlate  with  it  those  that  con- 
stitute partridge,  and  not  chicken  or  turkey.  Or  if  you  are 
in  a  new  and  wild  region,  the  particulars  you  get  may  go 
so  far  as  to  show  you  that  you  have  found  a  bird,  but  the 
later  particulars  may  not  correspond  to  anything  you  knew 
before.  Then  to  "  know  "  the  bird  you  will  have  to  become 
familiar  with  new  particulars  by  studying  them  in  books 
or  in  as  many  specimens  as  you  can  find.  On  rereading  this, 
I  suspect  it  is  an  unconscious  echo  from  Spencer.  If  so, 
so  much  the  better. 

Now  let  us  see  how  far  we  can  correlate  this  unfamiliar 
telepathy  with  what  we  knew  before.  Are  there  any  well 
known  examples  of  one  person  thinking  another  person's 
thoughts  and  seeing  visions  under  the  influence  of  another 
person?  There  unquestionably  are.  Many  of  the  compara- 
tively familiar  range  of  phenomena  once  called  mesmeric  and 
now  called  hypnotic  come  under  that  category;  and  if  we 
can  get  telepathy  into  the  same  category  we  will  be  that  much 
nearer  to  understanding  or  "  knowing  "  it.  So  to  bring  hyp- 
nosis into  this  comparison  I  will,  as  with  telekinesis  and 
telepathy,  give  the  slight  general  notion  of  it  contained  in 
my  own  experience.  I  hope  that  an  old  man's  fondness  for 
his  boyhood  is  not  leading  me  to  overestimate  the  fitness 
of  introducing  a  second  batch  from  the  school  where,  when 
we  were  boys,  P first  aroused  my  interest  in  telekinesis. 

In  the  early  fifties  there  turned  up  in  N"ew  Haven  a  couple 
of  wandering  apostles  of  culture,  who  gave  exhibitions  at 
"The  Temple"  (of  the  Muses?),  which  then  stood  on  the 
corner  of  Court  and  Temple  Streets,  and  where  I  remember 
seeing  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  played:  conformably  with  its 
name,  "The  Temple"  admitted  only  "moral  shows."  The 
apostles  aforesaid  illustrated  publicly  and  taught  privately 


Ch.  XIX]  Some  Primitive  Hypnotism  279 

what  they  were  pleased  to  term  "Electro-psychology."  The 
"electro"  was  supposed  to  come  in  through  a  tin  or  zinc 
disk  about  as  big  as  a  silver  dollar  and  twice  as  thick,  in  the 
concaved  center  of  one  side  of  which  was  inserted  a  silver 
half  dime.  The  subjects,  selected  more  or  less  pellmell 
from  the  audience,  went  on  the  stage,  and  each  held  one  of 
the  disks  in  the  palm  of  the  hand,  and  gazed  at  it  intently 
for  a  few  minutes,  when  the  operator  told  one  to  close  his 
eyes,  made  a  few  passes,  and  asked  if  he  could  open  them. 
In  many  instances  the  subject  could  not. 

The  "electricity"  (galvanism)  between  the  two  metals 
(what  little  there  may  have  been  of  it)  of  course  had  "no- 
thing to  do  with  the  case."  The  result  came  from  gazing  at 
the  bright  object,  just  as  the  same  result  was  rediscovered  a 
generation  later  and  called  for  the  first  time  hypnosis. 

The  operator  told  one  subject :  "  Now  you  may  open  your 
eyes  to  look  at  that  steamboat  coming."  The  subject  did  so, 
and  was  at  once  much  interested  in  the  imaginary  boat,  the 
operator  suggesting :  "  How  fast  she  comes !  What  a  lot  of 
people  on  board ! "  and  other  things  to  the  same  effect,  all 
of  which  were  responded  to  by  the  subject;  and  some  of 
them,  if  I  remember  rightly,  suggested  by  him.  Between 
them  they  got  her  up  to  an  imaginary  dock,  and  when  she 
was  near  the  operator  asked :  "  Don't  you  see  anybody 
you  know  on  board  ?  "  Whereupon  the  subject  began  waving 
his  hand  to  the  passengers  and  calling  them  by  name,  and  I 
think  indicating  the  reception  of  responses.  After  the  sub- 
ject had  uproariously  called  to  Smith  or  Jones  the  operator 
exclaimed :  "  Why,  he's  fallen  overboard !  Help  him  out !  " 
Whereupon  the  subject  grabbed  somebody  near  him  on  the 
stage,  and  struggled  to  get  him  ashore.  There  were  many 
performances  of  the  same  kind. 

I  have  never  myself  seen  any  other  case  of  dramatic  vision 
produced  by  the  hypnotizer,  and  you  may  attribute  this  one 
to  collusion  or  post  facto  memory  on  my  part,  if  you  please ; 
but  innumerable  others  are  on  record,  including  some  where 
hypnotizers  have  suggested  the  same  vision  to  a  number  of 
subjects  at  once,  and  each  subject  has  filled  it  out  and  acted 
it  out  according  to  his  own  waking  idiosyncrasies,  and  differ- 
ently from  the  others. 


280    Suggested  Correlations  of  Telepathy    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

I  believed,  and  still  believe,  these  exhibitions  to  have  been 
genuine.  The  overwhelming  mass  of  comparatively  recent 
evidence  for  similar  things  would  alone  go  far  to  justify  me, 
but  there  were  strong  considerations  in  the  same  direction 
at  the  time. 

General  Eussell,  our  schoolmaster,  became  greatly  inter- 
ested, and,  because  he  thought  the  show  educational,  took 
his  boys  several  times,  and  took  lessons  in  the  art  himself, 
and  exercised  it  a  little,  if  I  remember  rightly,  upon  some 
of  the  boys.  But  he  soon  gave  it  up  because,  I  remember 
distinctly,  in  spite  of  its  being  unmistakably  "real,"  he 
wasn't  sure  that  it  didn't  "  come  of  the  devil " — a  gentleman 
in  whom  he  and  all  the  other  learned  people  of  New  Haven 
at  that  time  had  the  profoundest  confidence. 

Moreover,  John  Tuttle  learned  it  too.  John  kept  a  shop 
a  couple  of  blocks  from  the  school,  where  it  was  no  un- 
common feat  for  one  of  us  boys  (who  were  kept  well  exer- 
cised) to  demolish  an  entire  pie  on  a  Wednesday  or  Saturday 
afternoon,  or  even  at  a  midday  recess.  One  Saturday  after- 
noon John  tried  his  black  art  on  a  boy  who  is  now  one  of 
the  leading  bankers  in  New  York,  and  closed  his  eyes  effectu- 
ally. He  could  not  affect  me.  It  has  occurred  to  me  since 
I  have  read  somewhat  on  the  subject,  that  probably  the  other 
boy  was  acquiescent  with  the  experiment,  and  I  resisted. 
Possibly,  however,  he  had  only  got  farther  along  with  his 
pie! 

Now  in  cases  where  a  vision  experienced  by  one  mind  is 
plainly  due  to  the  influence  of  another  mind,  near  or  remote, 
may  not  the  influence  be  in  some  way  akin  to  the  hypnotic 
influence  which  produced  the  vision  of  the  steamboat? 

A  much  simpler  experience  which  I  had  many  years  later 
with  Hermann  the  prestidigitator  is  instructive.  His  wife,  I 
believe  it  was,  remained  on  the  stage  while  he  went  among 
the  audience  and  got  from  them  all  sorts  of  questions,  to 
which,  without  knowing  them  by  any  usual  means,  she  gave 
immediate  answers.  Wishing  to  see  if  there  was  any  telopsis 
involved,  I  handed  him  my  match-box,  asking  how  many 
matches  were  in  it.  He  asked  me,  and  I  said  that  I  did  not 
know.  He  opened  the  box  and  counted  them,  and  the  instant 


Ch.  XIX]       Hermann's  Hypnotic  Telepathy  281 

he  knew  the  number,  she  flashed  it  back  correctly.  Plainly  he 
had  hypnotized  her  before  he  started  among  the  audience,  and 
subsequently  telepathically  impressed  upon  her  the  answers  to 
the  questions  put  to  him.  This  occurrence  left  me  for  a  long 
time  confident  that  apparent  telopsis  is  all  telepathy,  but  later 
facts  have  diminished  that  confidence. 

It  is  well  to  tax  a  reader's  credulity  only  by  degrees,  and 
I  now  give  a  much  better  illustration  of  hypnotic  telepathy 
and  vision  building.  Several  instructive  and  entertaining 
instances  are  given  in  a  paper  by  Mrs.  Sidgwick  on  Clair- 
voyance and  Telepathy  in  Pr.  VII,  especially  those  from 
Dr.  Wiltse  of  Skiddy,  Kansas.  I  have  space  for  but  one 
(Pr.  VII,  77f.)  : 

"Mr.  William  Howard  and  Mr.  N.  Parker  called  upon  me 
early  one  morning  (stating  that  they  had  called  by  request 
of  neighbors)  to  ask  me  to  hypnotize  Fannie  for  the  purpose 
of  possibly  gaining  some  knowledge  of  the  whereabouts  of  the 
body  of  Uncle  Julian  Scott,  who  had  ridden  into  the  Emerald 
River  late  the  night  before  and  was  drowned 

"  I  then  stated  the  case  to  her,  asking  her  to  go  with  us 
[in  her  mind.  H.  H.]  to  the  river,  where  we  would  take  a 
skiff  and  look  for  the  body.  'Is  Uncle  Julian  drowned?  Poor 
old  man ! '  she  exclaimed.  She  expressed  her  willingness  to  go 
with  us,  only  stipulating  that  Mrs.  Wiltse  should  accompany 
us.  I  pretended  to  get  horses,  and  we  started  (in  her  mind). 

"It  was  three  miles  to  the  river.  On  the  real  road  lived  a 
Mrs.  Hall,  a  widow,  and  Fannie  called  out  suddenly,  'There 
is  Mrs.  Hall's  place!  Let  us  have  her  go  with  us! '  '  All  right, 
Fannie,  she  says  she  will  go  with  us,  and  here  we  are  already ! ' 
A  few  moments  of  that  peculiar  deep  sleep  to  suggest  the  pas- 
sage of  time,  and  I  rouse  Fannie  again  by  a  gentle  shake,  and 
say,  '  Here  we  are,  and  here  is  the  boat ;  now  I  will  paddle 
slowly  and  you  look  carefully  into  the  water.  Now  what  do 
you  see?'  She  immediately  began  to  describe  rocks,  logs, 
snags,  bottom,  &c.  (Suggestion.  I  had  constantly  to  repeat 
the  question,  'What  do  you  see?  Do  you  see  anything?  Can 
you  see  the  bottom?'  &c.,  or  she  would  shortly  be  snoring.) 

"  After  a  little  she  said  suddenly,  as  if  somewhat  excited, 
'  There  is  something  over  yonder  ahead  of  us ! '  Q. — '  Which 
way,  Fannie?'  F.— 'Right  hand,  way  down  yonder.  Paddle 
nearer  to  it.'  Q.— '  All  right.  Here  we  go!  Now,  what  is  it? ' 
F.—' I  see  now.  It  is  a  hat.'  Q.— 'Where?'  F.— 'Don't  you 
see  there  in  that  drift?'  (This  is  according  to  Mrs.  Wiltse's 
recollection  of  the  affair.  My  own  is  that  it  was  in  a  bush.) 
Q. — '  Describe  the  place,  Fannie,  so  we  can  get  it  as  we  come 


282    Suggested  Correlations  of  Telepathy    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

back.'  F.— 'Don't  you  see?'  &c.  And  she  described  certain 
peculiarities  upon  the  bank. 

"  Soon  after  this  she  announced  an  object  near  the  left  bank 
of  the  stream  and  asked  to  be  paddled  over  there.  Then  asked 
if  we  did  not  see  an  old  tree  body  under  the  water  near  the 
bank.  Q.— '  Yes,  Fannie,  what  about  it?'  F. — 'Why,  don't 
you  see  ?  There  is  something  under  it.'  Q. — '  What  is  it, 
Fannie?'  F.— 'I  can't  see.  Paddle  closer.'  Q.— 'All  right! 
Here  we  are!'  (Silence  on  Fannie's  part.)  Q. — 'What  is  it, 
Fannie  ? '  F. — '  Some  big  dark  thing ;  I  can't  see  what.  There 
is  a  saddle  there.  Don't  you  see  it  ? '  Q. — '  Yes,  Fannie,  what 
else  ? '  F. — '  Something,  but  I  can't  see  it  good ;  the  water  is 
muddy.  The  saddle  is  there.  I  can  see  it,  and  one  stirrup  is 
gone.'  Q. — '  All  right.  Can  you  see  anything  on  the  bank  that 
we  may  know  the  spot  as  we  come  back  ? '  F. — '  Why,  of  course. 
Don't  you  see  how  the  sand  is  worked  up  in  that  low  spot 
around  the  roots  of  that  tree  ? ' 

"I  see  that  my  evidence  upon  the  points  in  regard  to  the 
saddle  with  its  missing  stirrup  and  the  hat  is  not  as  explicit 

and  at  first  hand  as  I  could  wish But  common  rumor  had 

it  that  Fannie  was  right  upon  these  points.  As  to  the  rest 
of  the  points,  I  was  witness  myself  to  the  accuracy  of  her 
statements,  which  I  will  proceed  to  conclude. 

"  We  passed  on  down  the  river,  Fannie  professing  inability 
to  see  anything  more  of  interest,  and  after  a  few  minutes 
complaining  of  being  tired  and  cold,  and  teasing  to  go  back, 
said  there  was  no  use  to  go  any  further,  that  they  would  not 
find  Uncle  Julian  now,  and  repeated  her  curious  assertion 
about  the  uselessness  of  going  any  farther,  by  saying  with 
considerable  stress,  '  It  will  be  no  use  ever  to  look  below  right 
here ! '  Q. — '  All  right,  Fannie.  We  will  go  back,  but  first  show 
us  some  mark  by  which  we  shall  remember  the  place,  can  you  ? ' 
'  Why,  don't  you  see  ? '  she  exclaimed  in  a  tone  of  seeming 
disgust.  Q.— 'What  is  it,  Fannie?'  F.— '  Oh,  don't  you  see 
that  tall  bridge?'  Q. — 'Where,  Fannie?'  F. — 'Why,  right 
there!  We  just  now  passed  under  it,  right  there  it  is.'  (Note. 
Bridges  in  these  parts  were  very  scarce.  The  Emerald  River 
had  at  that  time  but  one  bridge  crossing  it,  an  iron  railroad 
bridge,  which  I  feel  sure  Fannie  had  never  seen,  as  there  was 
no  public  road  to  it,  it  crossing  the  river  at  a  wild,  isolated, 
almost  inaccessible  spot  in  the  mountains,  several  miles  from 
where  we  were  sitting.)  '  What  kind  of  a  bridge  is  it,  Fannie  ? ' 
I  asked,  purposely  for  a  test  of  the  reality  of  her  vision,  for 
she  was  now  back  into  the  realm  of  my  own  knowledge,  and 
I  was  somewhat  surprised  at  her  correctness.  F.  (hesitating 
for  a  space  as  if  taking  a  careful  view,  then  in  a  tone  of 
curious  surprise) — '  Why,  it  looks  as  if  it  must  be  made  of 
iron ! '  (Suggestion.) 


Ch.  XIXJ        Dr.  Wiltse's  Uncle  Julian  Case  283 

"  Just  as  I  had  suggested  that  we  were  on  the  way  back, 
Mr.  Howard  was  called  to  the  door,  where  a  neighbor  informed 
him,  in  so  low  a  tone  that  none  inside  heard  it,  that  the  body 
had  been  recovered  and  conveyed  to  the  residence  of  his  (Uncle 
Julian's)  son,  who  lived  on  the  bank  of  the  river  near  the  ford 
where  we  had  made  our  imaginary  start  with  a  boat.  The 
message  had  all  the  appearance  of  truth.  Mr.  Howard  came 
in  looking  rather  chagrined,  as  I  certainly  felt,  and  informed 
me  in  a  whisper  of  the  news.  '  Be  quiet,'  I  replied,  '  I  will 
try  another  experiment.'  I  didn't  believe  this  could  be  suc- 
cessful. 

" '  Fannie/  I  said,  '  here  we  are  now  at  the  landing.  We  are 
all  of  us  cold.  Let  us  go  into  the  Scotts'  and  warm.'  She 
agreed.  I  pretended  we  had  entered  the  house,  when  Fanny 
exclaimed  in  a  much  excited  manner,  'Why,  there  he  is.' 
Q.— 'Who,  Fannie?'  F.— '  Why,  don't  you  see  it?'  Q. — 'See 
what,  Fannie?'  F— '  Why,  they  have  found  Uncle  Julian  and 
got  him  laid  out.'  She  then  went  on  to  speak  of  different 
relatives  and  friends  who  were  there,  of  their  crying,  &c., 
naming  such  persons  as  we  supposed  it  would  be  very  certain 
would  be  there. 

"  Here  was  telepathy,  most  likely,  with  a  vengeance  [and 
dream-building,  too.  H.  H.],  for  not  a  word  of  the  whole 
thing  was  true.  The  body  was  not  recovered  until  fourteen 
days  after  the  drowning ...  by  a  train  hand  from  a  moving 
train  crossing  the  bridge  Fannie  had  declared  we  had  'just 
passed  under,'  where  it  had  lodged  upon  an  old  drift  just  below 

the  bridge 1  have  as  often  thought  of  the  perfectly  apparent 

prophecy  of  Fannie  in  her  emphatic  assertion,  '  We  have  just 
passed  under  that  tall  bridge  and  it  will  be  useless  ever  to  look 
for  Uncle  Julian  below  here ! '  I  could  flip  a  marble  from  the 
top  of  the  bridge  into  the  drift  where  rested  his  body  fourteen 
days  after  her  curious  trip  by  water  to  that  identical  spot  by 
way  of — what?  I  listen  for  the  answer.  Had  I  possibly  dem- 
onstrated the  soul,  as  I  began  experimenting  with  the  dismal 
hope  of  perhaps  some  time  accomplishing,  fifteen  years  prior 
to  this,  which  hope  I  had  never  once  quite  relinquished?" 

He  certainly  had  demonstrated  telepathy  and  dream  build- 
ing. Their  connection  with  "  the  soul "  we  shall  see  more  of. 

The  foregoing  shows  that  hypnosis  not  only  starts  the  visions 
the  hypnotizer  suggests,  but  also  frequently  develops  a  teloptic 
capacity  independent  of  any  voluntary  suggestion  of  the  hyp- 
notizer. Therefore  probably  a  sensitive  under  the  influence, 
conscious,  or  unconscious,  of  a  sitter,  or  possibly  of  some  re- 
mote mind,  could  pick  up  a  wide  range  of  matter  through 
telesthesia. 


284    Suggested  Correlations  of  Telepathy    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Now  in  this  vision  the  subject  was,  during  a  large  part  of 
the  time,  in  deeper  trance  than  my  steamboat  dreamer;  and 
both  of  them,  though  in  trance,  were  apparently  wide  awake, 
"  Fannie  "  part  of  the  time,  and  my  man  all  the  time.  So 
was  Foster  when  he  saw  the  pearl  and  the  fawn.  Does  it 
not  appear  almost  conclusive  that  he,  like  the  others,  was 
hypnotized — that,  whatever  else  a  sensitive  may  be,  he  is  so 
sensitive  to  the  hypnotic  influence  that  he  is  rendered  tele- 
pathic and  perhaps  teloptic  and  telakoustic  by  anyone  who 
happens  along — any  postcarnate  one,  if  you  please — that  he 
sees  and  hears,  more  or  less  accurately,  the  things  that  the 
sitter  or  even  someone  at  a  distance  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously suggests? 

Hypnotic  visions  hold  out  also  a  second  hope  of  correlation 
with  visions  in  general,  in  that  they  cover  both  the  sleeping 
and  apparently  waking  fields — waking  while  the  influence  is 
slight,  sleeping  when  it  has  become  strong.  This  all  would  de- 
pend upon  the  amounts  and  qualities  of  the  power  of  the  sitter 
and  the  sensitive,  hence  perhaps  we  can  account  for  the 
good  sittings  and  the  bad  ones  and  the  different  varieties 
of  them. 

The  hypothesis  seems  to  correlate  the  hypnotic  phenomena 
pretty  well,  but  of  course  there  are  gaps.  How,  for  instance, 
does  it  fit  with  Foster's  wanting  me  to  concentrate  my  mind, 
and  with  other  sensitives  saying  the  exact  opposite — that  they 
do  best  when  the  sitter's  mind  is  a  tabula  rasa  ?  Perhaps  the 
solution  may  be  that  generally,  where  the  sitter  wants  a 
specific  thing,  he  must  do  his  best  to  get  it ;  but  that  he  will 
be  apt  to  get  more  things  if  the  sensitive  is  not  restricted 
to  specific  ones,  but  simply  picks  up  all  that  happen  along. 

The  hypnotic  hypothesis  also  tends  to  correlate  with  the 
other  facts  it  covers,  the  third  fact  that  sympathetic  sitters 
generally  get  more  than  skeptical  ones,  and  much  more  than 
antagonistic  ones.  Mr.  Bartlett  tells  me,  however,  that  the 
skeptics  got  the  best  sittings  from  Foster,  apparently  putting 
him  on  his  mettle.  This  was  certainly  not  true  of  Mrs.  Piper, 
however,  but  she  was  always  in  deep  trance. 

Does  this  hypothesis,  then,  bring  everything  from  the  sitter, 


Ch.  XIX]  The  Interrelation  of  Minds  285 

and  under  it  must  the  spiritistic  hypothesis  throw  up  the 
sponge  ? 

Not  by  any  means.  In  the  first  place  it  does  not  "bring 
everything  from  the  sitter."  How  can  it  bring  true  things 
that  he  never  knew,  and  even  true  things  directly  contrary 
to  all  he  ever  knew,  which  the  sensitive  (or  the  control?) 
insists  upon,  and  which  are  subsequently  found  to  be  correct? 
The  hypothesis,  then,  must  go  beyond  the  sitter,  and  admit 
the  notion,  already  intimated,  that  in  some  way  we  cannot 
yet  make  much  of  a  guess  at,  the  sensitive  gets  impressions 
teloteropathically  from  any  sort  of  mind  anywhere. 

James's  objection  to  world-wide  telepathy — that  it  is  almost 
inconceivable  that  the  mind  should  select  the  fitting  thought 
among  the  myriad  thoughts  of  myriads  of  people — would  prob- 
ably not  have  been  made  after  he  became  familiar  with  the 
wireless  telegraph.  Probably  each  mind  receives  only  the 
thoughts  to  which  it  is  keyed. 

Why  not  lump  all  those  minds  into  the  cosmic  mind,  of 
which  each  is  a  part?  We  know  that  any  sort  of  a  fact, 
or  rather  memory  of  a  fact,  may  be  in  any  number  of 
minds  at  the  same  time,  and  we  know  that  all  facts,  or  rather 
all  memories  of  them,  are  in  the  aggregate  mind  at  all  times. 
The  only  open  question  is  the  interrelation  of  its  components, 
and  telepathy  is  giving  a  new  outlook  on  that. 

From  that  limitless  storehouse  perhaps  the  sensitive  draws 
or  is  flowed  in  upon.  Virtually  all  the  commentators  have 
suggested  this,  but  they  have  been  contented  with  mere  pass- 
ing suggestions.  We  shall  group  some  of  them  later. 

All  this  conveys  a  tentative  idea  of  how  the  sensitive  gets 
the  hints,  and  how,  just  as  we  constantly  dress  up  all  sorts  of 
hints  into  elaborate  dreams,  these  hypnotic  hints  are  dressed 
up  into  symbols,  like  the  pearl,  and  the  fawn,  or  into  per- 
sonages, such  as  those  Foster  and  others  sometimes  describe 
and  sometimes  enact,  or  as  we  all  associate  with  in  dreams. 
But  the  hints  must  be  pretty  elaborate  to  make  the  personages 
as  nearly  exact  copies  of  their  originals  as  they  so  often  are ! 
Compare  Chapter  XXIII  on  "The  Idea." 

I  know  I  am  repeating,  and  I  intend  to — often. 

Many  people  besides  subjects  known  to  be  hypnotized  have 
visions,  waking  and  sleeping,  which  are  so  much  more  definite 


286    Suggested  Correlations  of  Telepathy    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

than  mere  recollections  or  imaginations,  as  to  constitute  a  class 
by  themselves.  These  people  "  see  things  "  which  presumably 
are  not  there,  as  definitely  as  if  they  were.  These  visions 
seem  to  be  most  generally  of  persons,  and  have,  even  when 
waking,  the  definiteness  of  ordinary  dreams,  with  apparently 
all  the  ordinary  attributes  of  matter  but  resistance  and  per- 
manency. When  such  visions  have  anything  out  of  the  com- 
mon, such  as  relations  to  important  events,  those  who  know 
most  about  these  matters  quite  generally  believe  that  there 
is  often  a  causal  relation — mathematically  demonstrated  to 
be  far  beyond  any  possibilities  of  mere  coincidence.  Does 
some  other  will,  as  in  hypnosis,  facilitate  them  or  generate 
them?  Many  of  those  who  know  most  about  them  believe 
that  such  is  the  case.  "Will,"  however,  is  often  too  strong 
a  word :  many  cases  would  be  better  described  by  "  influence," 
or  even  by  "  unconscious  influence." 

Hypnosis  seems  much  like  dreaming  in  this  other  respect : 
that  the  wide  horizon  of  dreams  is  possible  only  when  the 
mind  is  freed  from  its  absorption  in  outer  details.  Similarly 
in  hypnosis  the  attention  is  diverted  from  things  in  general 
and  concentrated  on  one  thing,  and  that  a  thing  not  in  itself 
provocative  of  thought — on  the  silver  coin  in  the  zinc  disk, 
if  you  please,  or  on  any  bright  point — on  the  chalk  mark  on 
the  floor  to  which  the  chicken's  head  is  held  for  a  time  with 
the  effect  of  rendering  her  unable  to  raise  it.  Or  the  subject 
may  be,  as  I  have  been,  laid  on  his  back  and  gently  crooned 
to  sleep  with  assurances  that  the  trouble  the  physician  attacks 
is  going  to  yield  to  suggestions  of  betterment.  Whatever  the 
way,  the  mind  is  freed  of  all  distractions,  and  the  hypnotizer's 
suggestion  is  made  to  occupy  the  whole  of  it.  The  suggestion 
may  be  of  an  act,  and  the  act  is  done;  of  an  inhibition,  and 
there  is  nothing  else  in  the  mind  to  oppose  it;  of  a  vision, 
say  the  steamboat,  and  the  mind  is  filled  with  it. 

Sometimes  the  psychic  power  may  be  strong  enough  to 
overcome  all  competing  distractions  and  impress  the  vision 
in  the  midst  of  ordinary  daily  interests.  Sometimes  the  re- 
cipient may  be,  like  the  mediums,  so  susceptible  to  some  sorts 
of  psychic  impression  as  to  receive  them  when  other  people 
could  not — in  the  midst  of  alien  conversation  or  occupation. 
Sometimes  the  recipient  may  be  peculiarly  susceptible  to  them 


Ch.  XIX]        Telepathy  and  the  Dream  State  287 

only  in  sleep  or  trance.  Here  ie  probably  still  another  illus- 
tration of  the  arbitrariness  of  classification:  at  first  glance 
we  hold  sleeping  and  waking  to  be  distinct,  but  there's  an 
indistinct  region  between  them  peopled  by  all  sorts  of  visions, 
just  as  sleep  is  peopled  by  dreams.  Probably  all  people  have 
visions  in  the  borderland  between  waking  and  sleeping;  not 
so  many  have  them  on  the  far  side  while  sleeping;  and  very 
few  have  them  on  the  hither  side  while  awake;  and  yet  a 
few  certainly  do. 

This  seems  to  imply  in  these  people  some  power  of  having 
the  dream  state  side  by  side  with  their  ordinary  waking  life. 
That  power  may  exist  to  some  degree  in  all  of  us:  there  is 
no  knowing  when  any  one  of  us  may  have  a  vision  while  he 
is  awake. 

Telepathy  and  the  Dream  State 

As  already  remarked,  the  vast  majority  of  these  impressions 
come  while  the  percipient  is  in  bed,  and  it  seems  probable  that 
they  come  more  than  is  supposed  in  dreams.  From  my  own 
experience  I  for  one  have  no  doubt  of  it. 

One  often  dreams  of  things  taking  place  in  the  room,  and 
then  the  tendency  is  to  suppose  oneself  awake. 

I  had  a  very  strong  demonstration  of  this  last  night.  When 
I  supposed  I  had  not  yet  fallen  asleep,  I  suddenly  saw  that 
a  light  in  the  hall  had  been  switched  on,  and  heard  some 
talk,  apparently  from  one  or  two  of  my  boys,  with  their 
mother  in  her  room  next  mine.  Then  one  of  them  came  into 
my  room  and  told  me  that  his  younger  brother  had  indigestion, 
but  that  a  doctor  in  Montreal  (whence  the  speaker  had  come 
a  few  hours  earlier)  had  that  afternoon  given  him  and  a 
friend  an  awful  lot  of  pills,  and  that  there  were  enough  left 
over  for  the  brother.  Then  he  went  out,  switched  off  the  light 
in  the  hall,  and  I  turned  to  go  to  sleep. 

My  sleep  was  intermittent  and  full  of  dreams,  and  in  the 
intervals  my  conscience  reminded  me  that  at  dinner  I  had 
eaten  something  apt  to  be  productive  of  visions,  and  I  began 
to  suspect  the  reality  of  my  boy's  visit  to  my  room.  In  the 
morning  I  found  that  the  boy  had  not  been  there  at  all :  the 
whole  thing  had  been  a  dream.  And  of  course  I  am  con- 


288    Suggested  Correlations  of  Telepathy    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

firmed  in  the  belief  that  I  have  stated — that,  as  the  vast 
majority  of  visions  are  reported  as  seen  when  the  seer  is  in 
bed,  the  vast  majority  are  dreams.  That,  however,  does  not 
lessen  my  faith  in  the  occasional  veridicity  of  dreams :  on  the 
contrary,  whatever  significance  waking  visions  may  have  held 
is  proportionally  transferred  to  dreams.  I  have  had  several 
which  there  is  such  strong  reason  to  believe  both  telepathic 
and  veridical  that,  unless  they  were,  my  universe  is  chaos. 
Though  most  dreams  are  matters  of  ludicrous  stupidity,  there 
have  been  others  which  in  early  times,  and  not  always  fool- 
ishly, made  and  unmade  empires,  and  in  modern  times  have 
made  and  unmade  souls. 

The  absence  of  any  known  agent  for  some  visions  suggests 
some  active  capacity  in  the  sensitive  which  serves,  like  sight 
or  hearing,  to  involuntarily  pick  up  (I  sometimes  like  a  split 
infinitive)  any  circumstance,  past  or  present,  which  happens  to 
be  in  range,  perhaps  in  some  sort  of  memory,  individual  or 
cosmic,  the  range  of  course  often  being  influenced  by  the  pres- 
ence of  any  person  in  any  way  connected  with  the  circum- 
stance, and  his  exerting  some  influence  on  the  sensitive. 

Impressions  Lying  Dormant 

Many  visions  come  when  the  presumed  agents  of  them  are 
under  great  stress  that  may  be  transmuted  into  some  sort 
of  hypnotic  power.  Yet  on  the  other  hand,  as  many  come 
when  the  presumed  agent  is  in  articulo  mortis,  with  all  the 
powers  that  we  know,  apparently  exhausted.  It  is  easy  to 
assume  that  under  such  circumstances  there  may  be  awakened 
powers  that  we  don't  know — powers  akin  to  those  already 
mentioned,  which  seem  to  transcend  physical  conditions. 

But  many  visions  even  come  after  the  death  of  the  only 
conceivable  agent.  In  these  we  seem  reduced  to  the  alterna- 
tives, on  the  one  hand,  of  the  vision  being  impressed  before 
the  death,  and  lying  dormant,  or  on  the  other  hand,  of  the 
agent's  surviving  bodily  death  and  impressing  the  vision 
after  it. 

There  are  many  genuine  cases  of  impressions  lying  dormant, 
though  some  very  conspicuous  cases  have  lately  been  discovered 
to  be  faked. 


Ch.  XIX]  Telepathy  and  Telopsis  289 

Rudimentary  Senses  as  Shown  in  Visions  and  Dreams 

Another  category  where  we  can  correlate  telepathy  with 
what  we  know,  seems  to  be  that  of  the  rudimentary  senses. 
Why  may  not  the  impressibility  of  the  sensitive,  or  of  any 
hypnotic  subject,  be  due  to  the  action  of  a  rudimentary  sense 
or  faculty  as  yet  developed  to  a  noticeable  degree  in  only  a 
few  people  ?  We  certainly  have  senses  beyond  the  half  dozen 
usually  enumerated.  As  they  were  once  rudimentary — the 
eye  a  pigment  spot,  and  the  ear,  in  one  instance,  a  mere 
vibrating  cord  inside  a  chitin  shell — and  as  these  senses  must 
have  been  subjectively  known  by  faint  and  often  paradoxical 
sensations,  so  now,  have  we  not  strong  reason  to  believe 
that  human  beings  have  rudimentary  connections  with  the 
objective  world,  whose  reports  are  as  yet  very  faint  and  para- 
doxical ? 

Telepathy  and  Telopsis 

Here,  however,  on  the  borderland  of  knowledge,  we  cannot 
yet  tell  whether  telesthesia — telopsis  and  telakousis — are  really 
anything  more  than  telepathy.  We  cannot  be  certain  that 
visions  of  remote  scenes  or  persons  come  from  observation 
of  the  actualities:  there  is  no  case,  so  far  as  I  know,  where 
any  telesthetic  has  verifiably  reported  anything  not  already  in 
the  consciousness  of  some  human  being.  Houses,  rooms, 
known  places  of  any  kind,  and  what  people  are  doing  there 
are  all  memories  in  some  minds,  and  may  be  telepathically 
impressed  on  the  mind  that  seems  teloptic. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  and  a  test  of  a  sensitive's  ability 
to  get  outside  of  human  knowledge  I  may  refer  back  to  my 
little  experience  with  Herrmann  and  the  match-box  already 
related.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  tried  the  same  thing  with  Mrs. 
Piper  (Pr.  VI,  194).  From  a  confused  mass  of  lettered  cards 
he  picked  some  without  reading  them  and  put  them  in  en- 
velopes. There  was  no  correspondence  between  the  reports 
of  the  medium  and  the  contents  of  the  envelope. 

On  the  other  hand,  Foster  read  galore  from  sealed  enve- 
lopes and  from  rolled  pellets  of  paper,  but  the  contents  must 
have  been  already  known  to  the  writers.  There  is  a  puzzle, 
however,  in  the  fact  that  if  a  name  was  written  on  one  of  half 


290    Suggested  Correlations  of  Telepathy    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

a  dozen  slips,  and  all  rolled  into  pellets  without  his  seeing 
them,  he  would  pick  out  the  right  one.  Of  this  so-called 
"  influence,"  we  shall  see  more. 

There  are  certainly  very  few  cases  of  telopsis  that  cannot 
be  accounted  for  by  telepathy  or  teloteropathy.  But  in  Pr. 
XI,  379,  Myers  quotes  one  that  cannot  be. 

A  sensitive  in  Boston  successfully  directed  where  to  search  at 
Natick  for  the  bodies  of  two  boys  whom  nobody  knew  to  have 
been  drowned,  though  on  the  chances  considerable  ineffective 
search  had  been  made  near  the  spot.  The  seeress  subsequently 
went  to  the  place,  and  although  nobody  had  indicated  to  her  the 
exact  spot  where  the  bodies  were  found,  she  stood  on  the  shore 
and  tossed  over  her  back  a  stone  which  fell  into  the  exact 
place.  The  only  apparent  solutions  open  are  telopsis  or  tele- 
pathy from  the  cosmic  soul,  perhaps  the  special  portions  of 
it  that  had  been  associated  with  the  living  boys. 

Most  cases  of  superusual  warning  can  be  accounted  for  by 
usual  causes,  especially  if  we  include  telepathy  among  them, 
but  some  cannot — for  instance,  the  voice  which  warned  the 
dentist  away  from  a  vulcanizing  apparatus  which  soon  ex- 
ploded (Pr.  XI,  424f.). 

There  is  an  elaborate  prediction  of  death  in  Pr.  XI,  432f. 
which,  among  hypotheses  yet  open,  can  be  accounted  for  only 
by  prophetic  telesthesia  or  spiritism.  Generally  of  course  such 
predictions  hasten  their  own  fulfillment,  but  in  this  case,  the 
decedent  had  known  nothing  of  it. 

Of  prophetic  dreams  there  are  many.  One  of  the  best  is 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Kinsolving's  about  the  snake  (Pr.  XI,  495)  : 

"  I  seemed  to  be  in  woods  back  of  the  hotel  at  Capon  Springs, 
W.  Va.,  when  I  came  across  a  rattlesnake,  which  when  killed 
had  two  black-looking  rattles  and  a  peculiar  projection  of  bone 
from  the  tail,  while  the  skin  was  unusually  light  in  color.  The 
impression  of  the  snake  was  very  distinct  and  vivid  before  my 
mind's  eye  when  I  awoke  in  the  morning,  but  I  did  not  mention 
the  dream  to  anyone,  though  I  was  in  the  act  of  telling  my  wife 
while  dressing,  but  refrained  from  so  doing  because  I  was  in  the 
habit  of  taking  long  walks  in  the  mountains,  and  I  did  not  wish 
to  make  her  nervous  by  the  suggestion  of  snakes. 

"  After  breakfast,  I  started  with  my  brother  along  the  back 
of  the  great  north  mountain,  and  when  about  twelve  miles  from 
the  hotel  we  decided  to  go  down  out  of  the  mountain  into  the 
road  and  return  home.  As  we  started  down  the  side  of  the 


Ch.  XIX]  Possible  Uses  of  Telepathy  291 

mountain  I  suddenly  became  vividly  conscious  of  my  dream,  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  startle  me,  and  to  put  me  on  the  alert.  I 
was  walking  rapidly,  and  had  gone  about  thirty  steps,  when  I 
came  on  a  snake  coiled  and  ready  to  strike.  My  foot  was  in 
the  air  and  had  I  finished  my  step  I  would  have  trodden  upon 
the  snake.  I  threw  myself  to  one  side  and  fell  heavily  on  the 
ground.  I  recovered  myself  at  once  and  killed  the  snake  with 
the  assistance  of  my  brother,  and  found  it  to  be  the  same  snake 
in  every  particular  with  the  one  I  had  had  in  my  mind's  eye. 
The  same  size,  color,  and  peculiar  malformation  of  the  tail. 

"  It  is  my  belief  that  my  dream  prevented  me  from  treading 
on  the  snake,  but  I  have  no  theory  on  the  subject,  and  get  con- 
siderably mixed  and  muddled  when  I  try  to  think  on  the  line  of 
such  abnormal  experiences." 

Another  very  striking  one  about  an  accident  is  in  Pr.  XI, 
517. 

There  are  some  very  remarkable  forebodings  that  could  not 
have  been  telepathic,  in  the  experience  of  a  railroad  engineer, 
given  in  Pr.  XI,  559f. ;  and  some  interesting  testimony  re- 
garding the  percipient  and  narrator  in  this  case,  is  given  in 
Pr.  V,  333f.  There  are  more  good  ones  later  in  the  same 
paper. 

Possible  Uses  of  Telepathy 

The  possibilities  of  telepathy  in  terrestrial  communication 
are  obvious. 

We  have  had  hints  of  the  possibility  of  telepathic  communi- 
cation with  postcarnate  intelligences,  and  shall  have  more  as 
we  go  on.  For  the  present  a  word  may  be  worth  while  re- 
garding communication  with  intelligences  whose  existence  is 
not  so  often  questioned. 

While  it  seems  entirely  impossible  that  there  shall  be  any 
physical  transit  among  the  heavenly  bodies,  because  of  the 
lack  of  a  supporting  medium,  telepathy  holds  out  some  sug- 
gestion of  communication  with  them.  But  the  different  ex- 
periences which  inevitably  result  from  the  different  relations 
of  planets  to  their  suns  and  each  other,  and  their  different 
densities,  gravities,  lights,  atmospheres,  etc.,  involve  differ- 
ences in  the  inhabitants  of  any  two  planets  so  great  that  even 
telepathic  communication  is  hardly  conceivable.  But  if  telop- 
sis  and  telakousis  are  or  shall  become  independent  of  telepathy, 


292    Suggested  Correlations  of  Telepathy    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

our  seeing  and  hearing  those  remote  fellow-creatures  and  their 
environments  becomes  rationally  conceivable — perhaps  even 
more  conceivable  than  would  have  been  our  present  astronom- 
ical knowledge— say  of  the  weight  of  the  sun,  to  the  Magi 
that  watched  the  star  of  Bethlehem. 

Here  is  another  possibility  perhaps  more  immediate.  Tut- 
tle,  Davis,  and  the  general  run  of  their  kind  candidly  confess 
themselves  uneducated  and  generally  in  youth  rather  stupid 
along  conventional  lines ;  and  yet  the  two  named,  without  any 
effort  on  their  part,  produced  works  up  to  the  humble  average 
of  printed  matter,  which  pass  among  many  people  for  gospels ; 
and  they  spent  their  mature  lives  in  the  enjoyment  of  what, 
to  the  man  in  the  street,  answered  the  purposes  of  an  educa- 
tion. In  this  last  particular  we  might  couple  with  them 
Home,  only  his  "  education,"  ignorant  boy  as  we  know  him 
to  have  been,  passed  muster  not  only  with  the  man  in  the 
street  but  with  princes  and  philosophers. 

Now  all  this  "education"  was  telepsychic.  What  hopes 
for  the  future  that  fact  holds  out,  can  be  appreciated  only  by 
those  who  have  had  young  people  to  care  for  in  this  revolu- 
tionary age.  The  education  extending  from  Boccaccio  to 
Doctor  Arnold  is  entirely  inadequate  to  the  needs  developed  in 
the  last  half  century. 

Until  the  last  third  of  the  last  century  there  was  one 
pattern  of  education  for  everybody  (except  Mill  and  Spencer), 
and  despite  the  recent  variety  of  patterns,  we  have  got 
little  farther  than  confused  experiment.  Meanwhile  the 
•small  colleges  where  all  sorts  of  boys  were  thrown  into  a 
salutary  struggle  for  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  have,  in 
America,  grown  into  colleges  so  large  that  the  contact  of 
.all  sorts  of  boys  is  no  longer  possible,  but  they  all  fall  into 
strata,  mainly  according  to  wealth  and  social  position,  where 
those  in  one  stratum  have  little  chance  for  association  with 
the  best  intellects  and  characters  in  the  other  strata.  The 
rich  boys,  no  longer  held  toward  the  pace  of  impecunious 
friends,  take  their  college  course  merely  as  the  opportunity 
of  their  lives  to  have  a  good  time,  which  is  generally  a  very 
wild  one;  while  the  poorer  boys  go  through  without  the 
influence  of  the  refinements  which,  in  the  old  days,  their 
predecessors  rubbed  off  from  their  more  fortunate  friends, 


Ch.  XIX]  Telepathy  in  Education  293 

and  often  reciprocated  by  certain  greater  refinements  which 
flourish  best  in  soil  not  over-rich. 

The  state  of  affairs  in  the  colleges,  however,  is  not  so  bad 
as  in  the  elementary  schools.  In  the  colleges  there  is  some 
chance  for  a  boy  to  study  what  he  is  fitted  for,  whether  or 
no  there  is  a  chance  for  him  to  study  it  in  the  way  he  is 
fitted  for.  But  in  the  secondary  schools  there  is  little  chance 
at  either  for  any  boy  above  the  average  for  whom  those 
schools  are  designed.  The  increased  college  entrance  require- 
ments of  recent  years  are  hard  on  all  the  boys,  especially 
in  schools  where  there  is  an  attempt  to  round  them  out  into 
something  like  symmetrical  education.  This  taxes  the 
teachers  so  as  to  make  attention  to  individual  needs — espe- 
cially to  those  of  an  occasional  recalcitrant  genius — out  of 
the  question. 

Now  into  this  chaos  of  problems  and  pains  are  we  to 
look  for  light  and  order  some  time  through  the  advent  of 
telepathic  education — guided  of  course  by  experience?  Are 
the  rills  of  our  little  share  of  the  psychic  universe  eventually 
going  to  pour  into  all  of  us  as  freely  as  they  did  into  the 
gifted  ignoramuses  whom  I  named  a  page  or  two  back  ? 

The  hope  does  not  seem  extravagant.  Yet  the  first  person 
to  whom  I  suggested  it  answered  in  substance :  "  Then  we 
may  as  well  lower  the  flags  of  character  at  once.  Character 
means  effort."  I  replied :  "  There's  not  much  danger  of  our 
not  finding  work  enough.  The  attempt  in  my  college  days 
to  supply  it  artificially,  by  giving  us  such  stuff  as  pages  of 
chemical  formulae  to  memorize,  is  laughed  at  now.  Besides, 
we're  not  going  to  get  telepathy  any  faster  than  we  get 
character  to  handle  it.  Nature  has  been  mighty  conservative 
with  it  so  far." 

Doubtful  as  this  outlook  may  be,  it  is  a  big  one.  But 
this  book  is  fast  becoming  too  big  for  its  purpose. 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE  COSMIC  SOUL 

THE  community  of  minds  indicated  by  telepathy  and  some 
allied  phenomena  which  we  shall  reach  later,  has  revived 
in  apparently  all  students  the  vague  impression  as  old  as  phi- 
losophy, which  we  have  already  been  led  to  touch  upon  more 
than  once,  that  in  some  mysterious  way  all  mind  is  one,  just 
as  all  force  is  one  and  all  matter  is  one — that  mind,  instead 
of  being  a  disconnected  aggregation  of  individual  parts,  like 
the  sand  on  the  beach,  is  more  like  the  drops  in  the  ocean, 
where  all  the  individual  parts  are  blended. 

The  metaphor  fails,  of  course,  because  in  the  mass  of 
fluid  the  drops  lose  their  identity.  Perhaps  a  better  metaphor 
would  be  that  of  the  body  politic,  where  ideas  are  inter- 
changed, but  the  body  is  made  up  of  individuals ;  but  that 
metaphor  fails  in  the  lack  of  complete  mutual  interflow.  All 
metaphors  illustrate  but  that  part  of  the  aspects  of  the  subject 
to  which  we  apply  them,  and  fail  regarding  the  other  aspects. 
The  coming  of  the  unknown  into  the  known  is  like  the  com- 
ing of  what  we  call  a  "  dissolving  view  " ;  we  get  partial  and 
inconsistent  bits,  and  group  them  into  guesses  that  at  first 
may  be  very  wide  of  the  truth,  but  that  gradually,  with  more 
light,  become  coherent  and  workably  intelligent. 

And  yet  though  telepathy  frequently  forces  upon  us  that 
old  notion  that  all  mind  is  one,  we  nevertheless  have  the 
knowledge  that  all  the  minds  we  clearly  know  are  individual. 
The  idea  is  too  big,  and  in  its  modern  aspects  too  new  to  be 
a  clear  one,  yet  the  conception  of  the  Cosmic  Soul  has  been 
touched  upon  by  virtually  all  writers  upon  the  Cosmic  Ee- 
lations ;  and  some  have  poetized  a  great  deal  upon  panpsych- 
ism;  but,  so  far  as  I  know,  nobody  has  attempted  to  use  the 
conception  persistently  and  systematically  as  a  clue  through 
the  psychic  mysteries  we  are  considering:  all  the  recent 
investigators  seem  to  have  rested  with  (may  I  say?)  a  lazy 
294 


Ch.  XX]    Suggestions  of  Leaf,  van  Eeden,  Lodge  295 

content  and  an  almost  fetichistic  reverence,  upon  the  mere 
phrase  "  the  subliminal  self  "  which  Myers  imported  from  the 
school  of  Du  Prel,  or  upon  the,  in  some  respects,  wider  notion 
of  sundry  divisions  of  the  self.  But  though  the  Cosmic  Soul  is 
the  first  choice  of  hardly  anybody,  it  is  an  alternate  choice  of 
virtually  everybody. 

Here  are  some  of  the  various  aspects  the  notion  has  taken. 

We  got  a  trace  of  it  back  where  Professor  Holmes  asks 
whether  the  behavior  of  protozoa  is  due  to  "  physical  and 
chemical  factors,"  or  whether  we  must  assume  an  "  entelechy 
of  some  sort  to  explain  the  results." 

Dr.  Leaf  says  (Pr.  VI,  565),  italics  mine: 

"  If  then  this  under  self,  of  whose  workings  we  are  only  BO 
irregularly  and  so  imperfectly  conscious,  has  such  susceptibility 
to  other  minds  at  all,  it  is  no  wild  assumption  to  suppose  that 
it  is  continually  receiving  impressions  from  other  minds,  indeed 
from  every  other  mind  in  the  universe,  with  varying  clearness 
and  force  depending  on  some  conditions  which  we  cannot  at 
present  even  guess  at." 

Dr.  van  Eeden  says  (Pr.  XVII,  86)  : 

"  I  have  heard  the  source  of  this  supernormal  information  de- 
nominated by  an  English  poet  as  '  the  collective  memory  of  the 
race,'  and  this  broad  and  mystical  conception,  however  vague, 
seems  to  me  in  some  respects  the  safest  working  hypothesis  for 
further  investigation." 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says  (Pr.  VI,  464),  italics  mine: 

"  Undoubtedly  Mrs.  Piper  in  the  trance  state  has  access  to 
some  abnormal  sources  of  information,  and  is  for  the  time 
cognizant  of  facts  which  happened  long  ago  or  at  a  distance; 
but  the  question  is  how  she  becomes  cognizant  of  them.  Is  it 
by  going  up  the  stream  of  time  and  witnessing  those  actions 
as  they  occurred;  or  is  it  through  information  received  from 
the  still  existent  actors,  themselves  dimly  remembering  and 
relating  them;  or,  again,  is  it  through  the  influence  of  con- 
temporary and  otherwise  occupied  minds  holding  stores  of 
forgotten  information  in  their  brains  and  offering  them  un- 
consciously to  the  perception  of  the  entranced  person;  or,  lastly, 
is  it  by  falling  back  for  the  time  into  a  one  Universal  Mind 
of  which  all  ordinary  consciousnesses  past  and  present  are  but 
portions?  I  do  not  know  which  is  the  least  extravagant  sup- 
position." 


296  The  Cosmic  Soul         [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

And  also  (Pr.  VI,  648) : 

"  There  is  yet  another  kind  of  mind-reading,  if  such  it  can 
be  called,  which,  though  difficult  to  formulate  and  contemplate, 
yet  frequently  suggests  itself,  viz.,  the  gaining  of  knowledge 
through  some  hidden  community  of  mind,  through  the  existence 
of  some  central  world-mind " 

Myers  says  (Human  Personality,  I,  217-19)  : 

"  Bodily  death  ensues  when  the  soul's  attention  is  wholly  and 
irrevocably  withdrawn  from  the  organism,  which  has  become 
from  physical  causes  unfit  to  act  as  the  exponent  of  an  inform- 
ing spirit.  Life  means  the  maintenance  of  this  attention; 
achieved,  in  this  view,  by  the  soul's  absorption  of  energy  from 
the  spiritual  or  metetherial  environment.  For  if  our  individual 
spirits  and  organism?  live  by  dint  of  this  spiritual  energy, 
underlying  the  chemical  agency  by  which  organic  change  is 
carried  on,  then  we  must  presumably  renew  and  replenish  the 
spiritual  energy  as  continuously  as  the  chemical 

"  If  this  be  so — there  may  be  a  truth — deeper  than  we  can 
at  this  moment  stay  to  discuss — in  many  subjective  experiences 
of  poets,  philosophers,  mystics,  saints.  And  if  their  sense  of 
inflowing  and  indwelling  life  indeed  be  true ; — if  the  subliminal 
uprushes  which  renew  and  illumine  them  are  fed  in  reality 
from  some  metetherial  environment; — then  a  similar  influence 
may  by  analogy  exist  and  be  recognizable  along  the  whole 
gamut  of  psychophysical  phenomena 

"  The  nascent  life  of  each  of  us  is  perhaps  a  fresh  draft, — 
the  continued  life  is  an  ever-varying  draft, — upon  the  cosmic 
energy.  In  that  environing  energy — call  it  by  what  name  we 
will — we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being;  and  it  may  well 
be  that  certain  dispositions  of  mind,  certain  phases  of  per- 
sonality, may  draw  in  for  the  moment  from  that  energy  a 
fuller  vitalizing  stream 

"  Let  men  realize  that . . .  their  own  spirits  are  co-operative 
elements  in  the  cosmic  evolution,  are  part  and  parcel  of  the 
ultimate  vitalizing  Power." 

Elsewhere  Myers  says  (Pr.  VII,  120) : 

"  Just  as  a  study  of  the  propagation  and  interference  of  light- 
waves— depending  on  artifices  of  great  complexity — has  made 
known  to  us  inferentially,  yet  not  the  less  certainly,  an  obscure 
physical  entity  which  we  style  the  cosmic  ether;  so  also  may 
experiments  on  the  propagation  and  interruptions  of  clairvoyant 
or  telepathic  knowledge  or  memory  conceivably  reveal  to  us  in- 
ferentially, but  not  the  less  certainly,  an  obscure  psychical  en- 
tity which  we  can  best  describe  to  ourselves  as  an  anima  mundi 
or  cosmic  record  of  all  things." 


Ch.  XX]    Myers  Demands  Nothing  Less.    James  297 

In  Myers's  exposition  of  his  theory  of  the  Subliminal  Con- 
sciousness in  Pr.  VII  and  in  Human  Personality  (I,  llf.)  he 
piles  up  the  indications  of  superusual  faculty  until  he  gets 
far  beyond  our  usual  conceptions  of  human  powers,  and  where 
apparently  nothing  short  of  the  cosmic  soul  could  be  equal 
to  the  results. 

James  runs  up  against  the  same  notion  all  the  while. 
In  Pr.  XXIII,  4,  he  named  as  possibly  accounting  for  the 
medium's  report  of  forgotten  things: 

"  Access  to  some  cosmic  reservoir,  where  the  memory  of  all 
mundane  facts  is  stored  and  grouped  around  personal  centers 
of  association." 

Is  "personal  center  of  association"  a  bad  name  for  per- 
sonality ? 

Here  are  some  extracts  from  his  A  Pluralistic  Universe: 

(Page  299.)  "  For  my  own  part  I  find  in  some  of  these  ab- 
normal or  supernormal  facts  the  strongest  suggestions  in  favor 
of  a  superior  co-consciousness  being  possible.  I  doubt  whether 
we  shall  ever  understand  some  of  them  without  using  the  very 
letter  of  Fechner's  conception  of  a  great  reservoir  in  which  the 
memories  of  earth's  inhabitants  are  pooled  and  preserved,  and 
from  which,  when  the  threshold  lowers  or  the  valve  opens,  in- 
formation ordinarily  shut  out  leaks  into  the  mind  of  exceptional 
individuals  among  us." 

Each  individual  mind  seems  to  be  a  subdivision  of  that 
reservoir,  all  subdivisions  being  subject  to  intercommunication. 

(Page  308.)  "  They  have  had  their  vision  and  they  know— 
that  is  enough — that  we  inhabit  an  invisible  spiritual  environ- 
ment from  which  help  comes,  our  soul  being  mysteriously  one 
with  a  larger  soul  whose  instruments  we  are." 

In  his  Psychology  he  says  (I,  346) : 

"  I  find  the  notion  of  some  sort  of  an  anima  mundi  thinking 
in  all  of  us  to  be  a  more  promising  hypothesis,  in  spite  of  all  its 
difficulties,  than  that  of  a  lot  of  absolutely  individual  souls." 

In  Memoirs  and  Studies,  James  farther  says : 

(Page  201.)  "My  own  dramatic  sense  tends  instinctively 
to  picture  the  situation  as  an  interaction  between  slumbering 
faculties  in  the  automatist's  mind  and  a  cosmic  environment 
of  other  consciousness  of  some  sort  which  is  able  to  work  upon 
them." 


298  The  Cosmic  Soul         [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV 

(Page  204-5.)  "  There  is  a  continuum  of  cosmic  conscious- 
ness, against  which  our  individuality  builds  but  accidental 
fences,  and  into  which  our  several  minds  plunge  as  into  a 
mother-sea  or  reservoir." 

What  follows  seems  to  indicate  that  he  really  means  that 
rills  from  it  plunge  into  us,  which  has  long  been  my  guess. 
Throughout  the  passage  it  is  consoling  to  the  ordinary  writer 
to  find  himself  among  a  gentle  mixture  of  metaphors  by 
so  great  a  man: 

"  Our  '  normal '  consciousness  is  circumscribed  for  adapta- 
tion to  our  external  earthly  environment,  but  the  fence  is  weak 
in  spots,  and  fitful  influences  from  beyond  leak  in,  showing  the 
otherwise  unverifiable  common  connection.  Not  only  psychic 
research,  but  metaphysical  philosophy,  and  speculative  biology 
are  led  in  their  own  ways  to  look  with  favor  on  some  such 
'panpsychic'  view  of  the  universe  as  this.  Assuming  this 
common  reservoir  of  consciousness  to  exist,  this  bank  upon 
which  we  all  draw,  and  in  which  so  many  of  earth's  memories 
must  in  some  way  be  stored,  or  mediums  would  not  get  at  them 
as  they  do,  the  question  is,  What  is  its  own  structure?  What 
is  its  inner  topography?" 

Podmore  says  (New.  Spir.,  II,  162)  that  in  his  book  on 
Spiritism,  the 

"  famous  philosopher,  Edward  von  Hartmann  . . .  explained  the 
physical  phenomena  as  due  to  some  force  analogous  to  electricity 
or  magnetism  emanating  from  the  medium's  body ;  but  held  that 
the  mental  manifestations  point  to  a  transcendental  origin. 
He  suggests,  in  short,  that  in  thought-transference  or  clairvoy- 
ance the  mind  of  the  seer  is  in  connection  with  the  Absolute,  and 
through  the  Absolute  with  other  individual  minds." 

Podmore  also  quotes  (New.  Spir.,  II,  172)  Charles  Bray 
(On  Force,  its  Mental  and  Moral  Correlates)  : 

"  Our  bodies  are  continually  giving  off  thought  rays,  just  as 
they  give  off  heat  rays.  These  thought  emanations,  it  must  be 
inferred,  are  not  lost  to  the  universe ;  and,  indeed,  '  many  facts 
now  point  to  an  atmosphere  or  reservoir  of  thought,  the  result 
of  cerebration,  into  which  the  thought  and  feeling  generated  by 
the  brain  are  continually  passing.'  With  this  general  thought- 
reservoir  the  persons  called  spirit  mediums  may  be  presumed  to 
be  in  communication." 

The  conception  is  not  restricted  to  "  psychical  researchers  " 
in  the  special  sense,  but  looms  up  in  some  form  in  almost 


Ch.  XX]    Bergson.    Paradoxes  Fringe  all  Knowledge     299 

all  philosophic  writing.  That  we  may  be  up  to  the  latest 
fashion,  let  us  take  the  following  from  Bergson  (Creative 
Evolution,  191,  italics  mine) : 

"  From  this  ocean  of  life  in  which  we  are  immersed,  we  are 
continually  drawing  something,  and  we  feel  that  our  being,  or 
at  least  the  intellect  that  guides  it,  has  been  formed  therein 
by  a  kind  of  local  concentration." 

(/&.,  269.)  "  On  flows  the  current,  running  through  human 

generations,  subdividing  itself  into  individuals Thus  souls 

are  constantly  being  created  which,  nevertheless,  in  a  certain 
sense  pre-existed.  They  are  nothing  else  than  the  little  rills 
into  which  the  great  river  of  life  divides  itself." 

When  he  writes  of  "  life  "  dividing  itself  into  individuals, 
he  probably  would  permit  us  to  read  "  mind  "  or  "  souL" 

In  such  matters  we  are  pretty  far  along  when  we  get 
hold  of  anything  substantial  enough  to  call  an  idea.  But 
the  vague  groping  feeling,  yet  a  strong  feeling,  of  a  reality 
behind  all  these  paradoxes  and  metaphors,  is  by  no  means 
rare — a  reality  which  is  part  of  the  advanced  man's  substi- 
tute for  the  Mumbo  Jumbo  god,  which  is  the  best  that  the 
mass  of  mankind,  even  of  "civilized"  mankind,  have  so 
far  been  able  to  place  behind  their  universe. 

All  paradoxes?  Of  course  they  are.  The  whole  fringe 
of  our  knowledge  is  made  of  paradoxes. 

All  metaphors?  Of  course  they  are:  so  is  nearly  all  our 
language  after  it  gets  past  material  things  and  the  primary 
sensations  and  operations  that  they  initiate. 

Vague  adumbrations  of  the  general  notion  of  course  are 
found  as  far  back  as  Pantheism  is,  but  in  the  shape  I  am 
fumbling  over,  it  could  not  antedate  modern  evolution,  in- 
cluding the  modern  conceptions  of  force  and  matter.  This 
is  probably  why,  in  the  indexes  of  the  half-dozen  histories 
of  philosophy  I  have  at  hand,  I  find  the  term  World-Soul 
in  but  two,  and  no  closer  equivalent  than  Pantheism  in  any 
of  the  others,  and  in  one  or  two  (I  don't  care  to  look  again 
for  the  sake  of  exactness)  not  even  that.  The  books  all,  of 
course,  contain  various  paragraphs  about  Pantheism. 

Weber  (History  of  Philosophy,  translated  by  Thilly,  p.  94f.) 
has  one  on  the  World-Soul  apropos  of  what  Plato  had  to 
say  on  the  subject.  The  definite  thing  that  can  be  dug  out 


300  '  The  Cosmic  Soul         [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

from  his  imaginative  and  sometimes  poetical  confusions  is 
that  the  cosmos  has,  in  Weber's  phrase: 

"  a  soul,  the  mysterious  link  which  unites  the  contrary  prin- 
ciples in  the  cosmos,  and  whose  function  it  is  to  subordinate 
the  material  world  to  the  Idea,  or  to  subject  brutal  necessity 
to  reason,  to  adapt  it  to  the  final  purpose  of  the  Creator. . . . 
The  soul  of  the  world  consists  of  Number,  which  subjects 
chaotic  matter  to  the  laws  of  harmony  and  proportion." 

— whatever  all  that  may  mean— nothing  that  I  can  see,  unless 
the  cart  before  the  horse,  while  in  the  various  modern  notions 
there  does  seem  to  loom  up  something  behind  the  fog,  some- 
thing which  is  simply  the  facts  which  Plato  had  not. 

Paulsen  says  (Introduction  to  Philosophy,  Thilly's  transla- 
tion, 232ff.) : 

"Is  all  striving  and  willing,  as  it  confronts  us  in  the  thou- 
sand diverse  forms  of  existence,  finally  combined  into  the  unity 
of  one  being  and  will?  Does  a  unity  of  inner  life,  in  whose 
self -movement  and  self-realization  all  individual  life  and  striv- 
ing is  included,  correspond  to  the  unity  of  the  physical  world 
in  universal  reciprocal  action?" 

That  last  sentence  has  some  correspondence  with  the  ques- 
tion: Is  Mind  as  much  of  a  constituent  of  the  universe  as 
matter  and  motion?  I  shall  give  reasons  for  thinking  that 
it  is  more  of  one,  if  there  can  be  a  difference  in  essentials. 

(76.,  234.)  "  Eeality  is  not  annihilated  by  becoming  a  thing 
of  the  past.  The  past  remains  an  eternal  constituent  of  reality, 
and  the  present  moment  does  not  comprise  the  whole  of  reality." 

If  Paulsen  had  had  the  recent  evidence  (much  of  which 
we  shall  meet  later)  that  everything  past  exists  in  memory 
somewhere — say  in  the  Cosmic  Mind  (The  inheritance  of  all 
ancestral  experience  is  not  big  enough  to  fill  the  bill)  that 
statement  would  have  had  additional  certainty  and  significance. 

(76.,  234.)  "  May  we  now . . .  say :  What  we  see  in  our 
own  lives  on  the  small  scale,  what  we  seem  to  recognize  also 
in  the  life  of  the  earth,  is  true  of  the  world  at  large?  Are  its 
aim  and  being  contained  in  a  universal  life,  in  an  eternal 
spiritual  life,  the  fullness  of  which  far  surpasses  our  notions 
of  it,  but  of  whose  essence  we  get  a  glimpse  in  our  own  spiritual 
natures  ? 

"I  believe  that  we  may  make  such  statements  and  that  we 


Ch.  XX]  Paulsen,     Science  Inadequate  301 

may  add:  There  is  no  view  which  explains  existence  more 
simply  and  clearly." 

Certainly  none  which  so  well  fits  the  phenomena  of  tele- 
pathy and,  we  shall  see  later,  of  "  possession." 

(76.,  235-6.)  "That  this  view  is  indeed  more  plausible 
than  any  other  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  all  thinkers,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  philosophizing  physicists,  are  remarkably 
unanimous  in  regarding  it  as  the  final  explanation  of  the 
universe.  In  the  East  as  in  the  West,  in  ancient  as  well  as  in 
modern  times,  the  thoughts  of  the  freest  and  profoundest  have 

converged  towards  this  point Wherever  modern  philosophy 

finds  its  freest  and  boldest  expression,  it  invariably  returns  to 

this  view Existence  is  a  unified  spiritual  life,  the  visible 

part  of  which  is  the  evolution  of  psychical  life,  and  particularly 
of  earthly  human  life. 

"  During  the  ascendancy  of  speculative  philosophy,  this  the- 
ory . . .  was  regarded  as  absolute  truth. ...  It  was  called  the 
secret  religion  of  the  cultured  classes,  and  its  followers  were 
convinced  that  it  would  gradually  penetrate  into  such  circles 
as  were  as  yet  unable  to  grasp  truth  except  in  concrete  images. 
But  it  happened  otherwise.  As  far  as  there  can  be  any  question 
of  a  philosophical  world-view  among  the  cultured  (most  of  them 
get  along  without  any),  it  is  more  apt  to  be  found  along  the 
lines  of  natural-scientific  materialism  or  of  an  epistemological 
skepticism.  The  physical  view  of  things  has  dislodged  the 
poetical-speculative  reflection.  The  notion  of  an  inner  uni- 
versal life  is,  for  the  most  part,  wholly  foreign  to  our  natural 
scientists.  The  idea  of  a  world-soul . . .  seems  to  them  to  be  as 
childish  a  dream  as  that  of  anthropomorphic  gods.  They  do 
not  need  the  hypothesis,  they  can  explain  the  world  by  means 
of  atoms  and  physical  forces,  excepting,  perhaps,  that  small 
remainder,  the  states  of  consciousness  in  the  brain  of  living 
beings.  Science ...  no  longer  allows  itself  to  indulge  in  the 
childish  play  of  such  fantastical  speculations And  the  ed- 
ucated classes,  intimidated  by  the  self-assurance  of  natural 
science,  are  ashamed  to  profess  views  that  do  not  bear  its 
stamp." 

All  of  which  casts  some  light  upon  the  facts  that  within 
a  generation  literature  and  art  have  drooped,  that  the  soul 
of  man  has  taken  up  its  residence  in  his  pocket,  that  gambling 
has  again  become  a  current  amusement  in  circles  otherwise 
respectable,  and  that  the  best  thing  the  age  could  do  with 
the  proudest  of  its  typical  creations — the  Titanic — was  to 
send  it  to  destruction  for  the  chance  of  being  able  to  advertise 
a  trifling  increment  of  speed. 


302  The  Cosmic  Soul         [Bk.  H,  Pt  IV 

Heaven  forfend,  however,  any  attempt  to  cure  such  ills 
by  a  revival  of  the  old  type  of  speculative  philosophy !  Dog- 
matism was  a  worse  ill  than  any  of  them,  and  a  priori 
dogmatism  is  the  worst  of  dogmatisms. 

Let  us  see  if  we  can  focus  the  various  glints  shown  in  the  last 
half  dozen  pages  into  something  like  a  systematic  statement. 
Of  course  all  our  terms  must  be  provisional;  in  fact,  with 
our  recent  experience  of  the  rapid  evolution  of  knowledge, 
we  are  pretty  near  a  recognition  that  all  terms  whatever  must 
be  provisional.  But  let  us  go  ahead  with  those  we  have. 
Of  course  we  can  get  notions  of  these  vague  ideas  only  by 
repetition  of  them  from  various  points.  I  hope  the  repetition 
will  not  overtax  your  patience. 

Mind  is  as  fundamental  and  pervasive  a  constituent  of 
the  universe  as  Matter  and  Motion  are.  We  cannot  account 
for  mind  as  it  is  to-day  without  associating  it  with  the  atoms 
from  which  we  assume  it  to  have  started,  though  it  is  by  no 
means  limited  to  them.  Unlike  matter  and  motion,  it  is 
not  fixed  in  quantity ;  every  moment  its  raw  material  is  being 
worked  up  into  new  thoughts,  emotions,  fancies — and  psychic 
personalities,  if  you  please;  and  all  these  are  added  to  the 
previous  sum,  pervade  innumerable  individualities,  and 
through  some  phenomena  which  we  have  already  seen  and 
others  which  we  shall  see  later,  now  generally  appear  to  be  as 
indestructible  as  matter  and  motion. 

All  this  looks  very  much  like  good  hard  fact.  Now  for  a 
venture  on  the  thin  ice.  A  soul  is  made  up  of  experiences, 
thoughts,  feelings.  How,  then,  about  the  old  and  widespread 
notion  of  the  souls  at  death  flowing  back  into  the  cosmic 
soul  ?  This  question  is  suggested,  not  only  by  the  considera- 
tions just  given,  but  also,  of  course,  by  the  way  things  sus- 
piciously like  departed  psychic  personalities  have  been  showing 
themselves  through  the  sensitives  and  in  ordinary  dreams. 

But  though  perhaps  we  flow  back  into  this  constantly 
increasing  aggregate  of  mind — the  Cosmic  Soul — it  seems 
much  more  obviously  to  flow  into  us — at  times  and  in  de- 
grees that  vary  enormously,  as  we  vary.  Into  the  least 
sensitive  or  receptive,  it  does  not  go  perceptibly  beyond 
the  ordinary  psychoses  of  daily  life;  into  others  it  seems  to 


Ch.  XX]    Excluding  Phenomena  Admits  Telepathy        303 

penetrate  in  ways  to  which  we  hardly  know  how  to  assign 
limits.  Will  it  not  presumably,  as  evolution  goes  on,  flow 
more  and  more  into  all  of  us? 

Now  the  human  receptacles  for  mind  seem  to  be,  to  use 
our  poor  phrase,  elastic;  and  the  flow  of  mind  depends  on 
many  more  conditions  than  we  have  any  idea  of.  One  of  them, 
as  we  all  know,  is  the  flow  of  blood.  Another  seems  to  be  (to 
express  it  as  well  as  we  can  with  our  rough  matter-made 
metaphor- words)  making  a  place  for  the  inflow  by  excluding 
ordinary  matters  of  attention,  as  in  hypnosis.  There  are 
all  degrees  of  this  exclusion,  from  the  hypnotic  subject's  con- 
centrating his  attention  on  a  single  object  or  yielding  it  ex- 
clusively to  its  hypnotizer,  to  Foster's  voluntarily  excluding 
what  does  not  concern  his  sitter,  and  perhaps  feeling  a  hyp- 
notic influence  from  the  concentration  of  attention  he  asks 
from  his  sitter;  on  to,  as  we  shall  see  later,  Mrs.  VerralPs 
excluding  everything  she  can  when  awake;  to  everybody's 
excluding  almost  everything  in  sleep ;  to  Mrs.  Piper's  excluding 
everything  in  trance.  Under  these  conditions,  to  speak  very 
roughly  and  provisionally,  there  seems  to  be  a  cosmic  inflow 
in  proportion  to  the  space  provided  for  it.  Foster  gets  an 
occasional  idea  supernormally  from  the  sitter  and  perhaps 
even  from  discarnate  minds;  Mrs.  Verrall  gets  a  string  of 
them ;  we  nearly  all  get  varying  dreams,  and  some  of  us  get 
dreams  beside  which  waking  life  is  insignificant;  and  Mrs. 
Piper  appears  to  get  the  experiences  of  hundreds  of  souls 
by  the  exclusion  of  her  own  and  the  reception  of  theirs. 

There  seems  a  close  relation  between  hypnosis  and  cosmic 
inflow.  In  fact,  what  is  hypnosis  but  an  inflow  from  one 
unit  of  the  cosmic  mind  to  another — from  the  agent  to  the 
subject?  What  else  is  telepathy?  Our  being  too  ignorant 
to  make  an  answer  does  not  prove  the  identity,  but  it  does 
leave  the  field  open  for  exploration  which  may  confirm  the 
identity. 

But  without  the  body,  which  seems  as  if  it  were  devised 
for  the  evolution  of  the  individual  soul,  how  do  the  alleged 
departed  souls  remain  individual?  They  profess  to  answer 
by  saying  that  they  still  have  bodies,  but  better  ones  than 
those  we  know.  But  we  are  anticipating. 

Whether  it  all  means  spiritism  or  not,  it  certainly  means 


304  The  Cosmic  Soul         [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

at  least  wider  reach  of  mind  than  we  knew  before — some  as 
yet  faint  reaction  and  apparent  blending  of  each  mind  with 
more  of  the  mind  pervading  the  universe. 

To  cultivate  this  general  view  of  the  psychic  universe  as  a 
whole,  now  seems  as  important  for  the  psychologist,  as  similar 
views  of  matter  and  motion  are  for  the  physicist. 

In  opening  up  this  wider  reach  psychical  research  has  done 
a  work  of  unsurpassed  importance.  The  fruition  of  that 
work  we  have  but  begun  to  enter  upon.  There  seems  reason- 
able hope  that  there  is  waiting  something  beside  which  all 
that  comes  from  our  as  yet  rudimentary  senses  is  insignificant. 

And  now  probably  you  see  why  I  have  harped  so  on  the 
impossibility  of  rigid  classifications  in  Nature — on  the  fact 
that  those  of  science  are  necessarily  arbitrary — why  I  have 
tried  in  so  many  connections  to  impress  the  truth  that,  so  far 
as  we  can  really  conceive,  all  Nature  is  one.  I  have  done  it 
to  prepare  the  way  to  the  conception  that  all  Soul  is  one. 

But,  if  in  solitude  at  such  places  as  the  Gornergrat,  or 
Lake  Champlain,  or  anywhere  under  the  stars,  you  have 
not  already  felt  that  conception,  you  will  probably  find  my 
efforts  wasted,  and  they  may  be  mere  waste  anyhow,  except 
as  they  may  possibly  stimulate  somebody  else  to  better  ones. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
THE  COSMIC  SOUL  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL  SOUL 

BUT  how  about  the  bearing  of  this  doctrine  of  the  Cosmic 
Soul  on  the  question  of  our  individuality? 

Each  of  us  sets  a  good  deal  of  store  by  his  individuality, 
some  of  us  rightly,  but  take  away  from  one  of  us  the  stream 
of  vital  energy  that  in  one  sense  is  not  himself  at  all,  but 
flows  from  outside  to  outside  through  his  sympathetic  nervous 
system,  and  also  take  away  the  stream  of  consciousness  that 
certainly  in  large  part  flows  from  outside  into  his  afferent  sys- 
tem and  at  least  partly  back  to  outside  through  his  efferent 
system — take  away  these  streams  which  are  not  himself,  and 
how  much  individuality  is  left  ? — The  individuality  of  a  corpse 
that  perceptibly  begins  to  disappear  within  three  days. 

The  individuality,  then,  does  in  part  come  from  outside. 
Yet  it  is  unquestionably  largely  determined  in  amount  and 
character  by  the  body — the  size,  shape,  and  quality  of  the 
brain  and  the  blood-vessels  supplying  it,  and,  in  less  degree, 
by  the  qualities  of  the  heart  and  organs  that  affect  the  blood 
supply.  When  the  stream  of  mind-potential  goes  through  a 
man  he  is  affected  by  just  those  things  that  his  organism  is 
fitted  to  respond  to.  It  is  somewhat  as  if  the  brain  cells  and 
their  connections  were  a  number  of  wireless  telegraph  re- 
ceivers responding  to  such  vibrations  as  they  are  keyed  to. 
The  kinds  of  this  responsiveness  make  up  a  man's  individu- 
ality. The  other  persons  who  respond  to  nearly  the  same 
kinds  are  congenial  with  him.  Farther,  like  the  telegraph 
instrument,  he  not  only  receives,  but  he  sends  out — what  he 
has  to  say  for  himself  also  determines  his  affinities. 

The  stream  of  thought  that  flows  through  us,  then,  is 
certainly  not  part  of  our  individuality;  and  it  certainly  is 
part  of  our  individuality.  What  it  shall  be  for  any  one  of 
us  is  determined  more  definitely  than  perhaps  at  any  other 
time,  when  (so  far  as  there  is  a  "  when  "  to  the  determination 
305 


306        Cosmic  Soul  and  Individual  Soul    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

of  anything)  it  is  fixed  which  one  of  a  myriad  of  spermatozoa 
is  to  become  the  tenant  of  a  waiting  ovum.  That  sperma- 
tozoon seems  to  have  its  individual  stream  or  streams  of 
outside  power  and  mind-potential,  while  it  is  accreting  to 
itself  pound  after  pound  of  matter,  foot-pound  after  foot- 
pound of  energy,  and  later,  universe  after  universe  of  ideas. 
Its  body,  its  energies,  its  universes  will  be  unlike  those  of 
any  other  creature:  it  will  be  an  individual. 

One  soon  comes  to  have  an  individual  share  in  determining 
what  one's  psychic  stream  shall  consist  of  and  whither  it 
shall  flow.  Whether  it  shall  consist  of  the  thoughts  of 
butcher,  baker,  or  candlestick-maker,  one  has  pretty  much  his 
own  way.  So  has  he,  but  in  less  degree,  as  to  whether  it 
shall  be  the  thoughts  of  rich  man,  poor  man,  beggar-man,  or 
thief.  In  still  less  degree  he  determines  whether  it  shall  be 
the  thoughts  of  doctor,  lawyer,  priest,  or  engineer;  still  less 
whether  it  shall  be  those  of  statesman,  philosopher,  artist,  or 
poet;  and  scarcely  at  all  whether  it  shall  be  those  of  Shak- 
spere,  Newton,  Humboldt,  Lincoln,  or  Spencer.  In  one  sense, 
and  in  a  very  important  sense,  such  men  have  relatively  less 
choice  regarding  their  own  individualities  than  have  the  rest 
of  mankind  regarding  theirs.  The  greater  the  individuality, 
the  less  is  it  determined  by  itself. 

But  from  another  side:  the  greater  the  individuality,  the 
more  is  it  determined  by  itself  as  it  grows  up.  Lincoln  had 
to  make  Lincoln,  but  he  could  not  help  making  Lincoln. 

Not  only  can  the  man  largely  determine  the  contents  of 
his  psychic  stream,  but  he  can  also  largely  determine  what 
he  shall  do  with  it;  and  this  not  only,  as  already  indicated, 
in  the  broad  general  current  of  his  life,  but  in  the  many 
special  things  that  are  largely  independent  of  the  current. 

But  despite  all  this,  the  stream  comes  from  outside  him  and 
flows  back  to  outside  him,  and  is  almost  as  independent  of 
him  as  if  it  ran  through  a  hose,  though  he  can  use  it  in 
the  same  ways — to  water  gardens  in  his  mind,  or  to  put  out 
mental  conflagrations,  or,  like  a  sand-blast,  to  carve  inscrip- 
tions and  decorations.  And  while  he  uses  his  stream  of 
thought  to  affect  both  the  world  and  his  own  mind,  all  the 
while  that  stream  of  thought  is  not  exclusively  himself.  And 
it  is  himself!  All  those  things  are  his  work! 


Ch.  XXI]          The  Stream  of  Consciousness  307 

When  we  think  of  a  man  as  an  individual  it  is  because 
we  take  thought  of  only  part  of  him,  and  probably  the  least 
significant  part :  we  cannot  form  a  passably  thorough  idea  of 
a  man  without  saturating  it  through  and  through  with  the 
idea  of  the  Cosmic  Inflow  from  outside — of  God,  if  you 
please. 

"  When  me  they  fly,  I  am  the  wings." 

Again  I  have  been  writing  paradoxes,  and  I  shall  write 
many  more :  that  alarm  bell  always  rings  when  we  reach  the 
limits  of  our  faculties. 

Under  ordinary  circumstances  the  individual  is  conscious 
of  only  the  limited  portion  of  the  stream  of  mind  which  con- 
stitutes "  him  " — the  "  him  "  of  the  moment ;  but  in  dream, 
trance,  hypnosis,  and  apparently  articulo  mortis,  at  least  by 
drowning,  he  seems  conscious  of  a  much  larger  proportion 
of  his  own  stream,  sometimes  apparently  of  all  since  the 
first  conscious  experience.  The  stream,  then,  after  it  has 
passed  on  is  not  lost,  hopelessly  sunken,  or  evaporated.  Though 
the  man  is  not  ordinarily  conscious  of  the  whole  stream  after 
it  has  passed  him,  it  seems  to  exist  somewhere — somewhere 
whence  it  can  be  brought  The  recovered  thing  is  but  a  copy 
of  the  stream,  one  presentation  of  the  "  Idea  "  of  the  man. 
But  at  least  the  Idea  is  not  lost.  .The  medium — telepathic- 
ally  from  somebodies'  memories,  or  heteromatically  from  a 
postcarnate  individuality — presents  some  sort  of  a  rendering 
of  it  at  any  moment — a  rendering  that  is  more  than  a  stream 
of  memories — more  like  a  thinking,  feeling,  responding  man. 

We  have,  I  trust,  reached  some  sort  of  a  reconciliation 
between  the  idea  of  a  Cosmic  Consciousness  and  an  individual 
consciousness,  the  interflow  between  them  being  most  strongly 
manifested  in  states  of  inspiration  and  dream.  We  have  what 
seem  to  be  the  facts,  whether  we  can  reconcile  them  or  not. 

The  Transcendent  Ego 

The  last  guess  is  at  variance  with  the  guess  that  inspiration 
and  dream  come  from  a  transcendent  ego — a  subliminal  self, 
unless  we  adopt  the  Cosmic  Mind  as  the  transcendent  ego — 
the  subliminal  self. 

I  cannot  find  any  transcendent  ego  in  the  ordinary  sense — 


308        Cosmic  Soul  and  Individual  Soul    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

anything  more  in  a  man  strictly  as  an  individual  independent 
of  cosmic  inflow — than  what  has  been  evolved  by  the  sense- 
reactions  between  him,  including  his  ancestors,  on  the  one 
side,  and  on  the  other,  the  environment,  including  what  has 
been  put  into  him  by  that  portion  of  the  reactions  constituting 
his  education.  In  the  strict  sense  of  ego  or  self,  apparently 
there  cannot  be  more  than  that  much,  if  that  much. 

And  yet  it  is  often  said  of  almost  any  man :  "  He  surpassed 
himself."  This  is  of  course  a  contradiction  in  terms — another 
paradox  on  the  borders  of  knowledge.  Yet  it  relates  to  a 
universally  admitted  phenomenon.  Now  what  does  the  phrase 
mean — what  phrase  that  is  not  a  contradiction  in  terms  will 
express  it  ?  If  there  is  any  matter  not  yet  verified,  upon  which 
thinkers  have  agreed  through  all  recorded  time,  it  is  that  these 
people  who  surpass  themselves — orators,  poets,  artists,  musi- 
cians, generals,  even  dancers  and  clowns — everybody  who  does 
anything,  is  occasionally  "  inspired  " — breathed  into :  and  that 
must  be  from  outside. 

What  makes  a  "  sensitive,"  or  a  genius,  seems  to  be  ability 
beyond  that  of  people  in  general,  to  evoke  the  contents  of  the 
subliminal  consciousness,  whatever  it  may  be — Cosmic  Soul  if 
you  please,  into  the  supraliminal  or  vigilant  or  waking  con- 
sciousness. This  is  imagination — inspiration — "  possession," 
though  we  may  yet  conclude  that  they  may  be  also  something 
more. 

The  theory  of  inspiration  is  encouraged  by  the  great  ability 
shown  at  times  by  men  like  Tolstoy  whose  intelligence  and 
reasoning  powers  are  inferior — who  are  constantly  ignoring  or 
even  contradicting  obvious  facts ;  to  whom  two  and  two  are  as 
apt  to  make  five  or  seven,  as  four ;  and  yet  who,  between  times, 
gush  out  streams  of  imagination  that  fertilize  the  ages. 

The  source  of  the  inspiration  has  lately  seemed  to  contain 
all  mind  that  is  on  our  planet,  or  ever  has  been,  and  to 
manifest  it  in  all  degrees,  from  the  lightest  thought,  imagina- 
tion, or  emotion,  up  to  those  complexes  of  them  all  which 
we  recognize  as  human  souls.  As  we  go  on  we  shall  find 
accumulating  indications  in  this  direction. 

True,  Poe  made  out  that  the  general  scheme  of  "The 
Raven  "  was  not  inspiration,  but  a  pure  piece  of  mechanical 
construction,  and  the  finding  of  the  refrain  a  piece  of  me- 


Ch.  XXI]  The  Transcendent  Ego  309 

chanical  investigation ;  but  there  are  other  things  in  the  poem 
that  he  would  probably  himself  have  called  inspiration  if  he 
had  not  been  guardedly  defending  the  contrary  thesis ;  and  he 
is  generally  thought  to  have  supported  it  merely  for  the  sake 
of  making  a  sensation,  which  is  more  easily  done  by  con- 
tradicting the  truth  than  by  supporting  it.  The  fact  seems 
to  be,  however,  that  the  mechanical  inspirations  of  a  Poe — 
or  an  Edison — are  inspirations  as  truly  as  the  different  in- 
spirations of  a  Shakespere. 

The  idea  of  a  transcendent  ego  seems  to  have  come  from 
the  idea  of  a  transcendent  universe.  But  the  transcendent 
universe  is  virtually  demonstrable,  while  the  transcendent 
ego,  as  a  purely  individual  quality  independent  of  the  cosmic 
soul,  seems  far  from  demonstrable,  and  indeed  counter  to 
the  indications  of  evolution:  for  evolution  apparently  pro- 
duces only  the  known  ego  resulting  from  interactions  between 
the  known  self  and  the  known  environment.  Anything  more 
must  apparently  be  an  inflow  from  outside  the  known  universe. 

Those  who  hold  for  the  individual  subliminal  are  used  to 
seeing  the  physical  man  limited  to  his  x  pounds,  and  so 
they  assume  a  psychical  man  limited  to  his  x  capacities. 

This  x,  however,  they  say  =  y  +  z,  y  being  what  the  man 
does  ordinarily,  and  z  being  what  he  can  do  only  in  inspira- 
tion or  dream.  Du  Prel  uses  over  and  over  again  a  com- 
parison of  y  +  z  to  the  visible  universe.  When  the  man  is 
awake  y  only  is  in  evidence — this  planet  and  the  sun.  When 
he  goes  to  sleep  or  goes  into  trance,  or  shows  telepathic 
powers,  z  appears — the  stars,  but  they  were  there  all  the 
while,  only  not  in  evidence.  Yet,  it  seems  well  to  repeat, 
Du  Prel  seems  to  posit  a  limited  y  +  z  (=  x)  faculties, 
just  as  he  posits  x  pounds  for  the  body. 

Now  in  view  of  such  facts  as  that  thoughts  from  single 
brains  are  spreading  into  all  the  brains  of  the  civilized  world 
every  day,  and  that  it  has  already  become  commonplace  doc- 
trine among  all  students  that  "the  subliminal  self  forgets 
nothing,"  isn't  it  a  fundamental  error  to  let  the  constant 
familiarity  with  x  pounds  lead  us  to  posit  for  each  man  a 
limited  x  (=  y  +  z)  set  of  faculties,  or,  in  more  general 
terms,  to  let  the  known  fact  that  matter  (motion)  is  limited, 


310        Cosmic  Soul  and  Individual  Soul    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

lead  us  more  or  less  consciously  to  reason  as  if  mind  were 
limited — to  assume  even,  in  face  of  the  now  incontrovertible 
facts  of  the  dream-state — the  waking  visions  of  Foster  and 
Stillman's  friend,  inspiration,  ordinary  dreams,  trance,  hypno- 
sis, mediumship — that  even  the  individual's  mind  is  limited? 
It  may  be  a  likely  guess  that  that  portion  of  it  which  has  been 
evolved  directly  in  connection  with  reactions  between  material 
organism  and  material  environment — the  y  mind,  perhaps — 
is  limited;  but  how  about  the  z  mind  of  the  dream  state 
as  just  particularized?  Apparently  it  has  not  grown  up  in 
the  observed  processes  of  evolution;  before  Mesmer  it  had 
not  attracted  much  attention  beyond  an  occasional  comment 
by  an  occasional  genius ;  but  all  the  while,  with  the  evolution 
of  the  y  mind,  that  z  mind  has  been  spasmodically  manifest- 
ing itself  more  and  more,  until  in  our  time  such  a  man  as 
Gladstone  has  pronounced  its  study  the  most  important  study 
of  the  age,  and  the  first  psychologist  of  recent  years  probably 
devoted  more  attention  to  it  than  to  any  other  department 
of  his  subject.  The  y  mind  has  observably  been  evolved,  and 
we  know,  after  a  fashion,  how.  But  let  us  amend  that  phrase- 
ology, and,  provisionally  at  least,  say  that  the  capacity  to 
receive  it  has  been  evolved.  This  does  not  seem  to  contradict 
any  facts,  and  may  be  useful. 

The  z  mind,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  sprung  upon  us  all 
of  a  sudden,  or  at  least  upon  our  modern  observation,  though 
Joseph  was  an  authority  on  it  in  Egypt,  and  there  have  been 
others,  in  their  way.  But  our  modern  students  of  psycholog- 
ical evolution  have  hardly  paid  any  attention  to  it,  and  the 
special  students  of  it  have  hardly  tackled  it  from  the  evo- 
lutionary standpoint.  Why  ?  I  hazard  a  guess.  May  it  not 
be  that,  unlike  the  y  mind  of  everyday  life,  the  z  mind  has 
not,  to  any  significant  extent,  been  evolved  in  the  individual, 
that  primarily  it  is  as  old  as  the  universe,  though  it  grows  with 
all  mental  action  in  the  universe — that  it  is  the  Cosmic  Soul  ? 

What  appears  to  be  the  human  evolution  of  the  y  mind  is 
mainly  constantly  increasing  ascertainment  of  truth  already 
existing  in  the  cosmic  mind — open  by  logical  and  experimental 
processes  to  human  knowledge.  The  z  mind,  on  the  other 
hand,  may  be  the  cosmic  mind  spasmodically  flowing  in  with- 
out such  process,  but  shaped  into  individuality  by  each  con- 


Ch.  XXI]         The  Y  Mind  and  the  Z  Mind  311 

stitution,  as  each  bay  of  the  ocean  gets  individuality  from  the 
shores. 

Accordingly,  if  any  portion,  and  not  all,  of  the  mind 
survives  bodily  death,  we  would  expect  it  to  be  the  portion 
we  have  designated  by  z,  and  later  it  may  be  found  interesting 
to  inquire  if,  of  the  survivals  alleged  through  the  mediums, 
any  preponderant  portion  is  of  the  z  mind — of  that  part  of 
the  personality  least  connected,  or  least  obviously  connected, 
with  the  evolutionary  reaction  between  body  and  environ- 
ment ;  and  if  "  evidential "  matter  sought  so  signally  in  vain 
is  not  after  all  part  of  the  y  mind,  which  is  mainly  an 
apparatus  for  the  conduct  of  earthly  life,  and  which,  there- 
fore, we  could  hardly  expect  to  find  strong  and  clear  beyond  it. 

The  phenomena  suggest  that  the  ordinary  reactions  between 
the  body  and  its  environment  evolve  the  commonplace  self- 
preserving  faculties,  and  that  exceptional  circumstances  which 
we  don't  begin  to  understand— even  heredity  seems  to  have 
little  to  do  with  them — produce  sporadic  persons  specially  open 
to  the  exceptional  forms  of  cosmic  inflow — genius,  medium- 
ship,  and  the  rest.  Even  the  quite  general  form  of  dreaming 
is  by  no  means  universal,  and  dreams  of  a  high  order  seem  to 
come  rarely  even  to  good  dreamers,  while  persons  subject  to 
mediuraistic  visions  are  rarer  than  poets. 

The  discovery,  if  discovery  it  be,  that  the  subliminal  self 
is  the  Cosmic  Soul,  may  impress  some  readers  as  belonging 
in  the  same  class  with  the  immortal  discovery  in  Natural 
History,  made  after  so  much  investigation  and  reflection,  that 
a  snaric  is  a  boojum.  Argument  against  such  an  impression 
would  be  wasted.  The  subliminal  self  is  as  much  a  part 
of  accepted  knowledge  as  is  the  law  of  association  of  ideas, 
and  the  Cosmic  Soul  is  at  least  an  intuition  of  most  of  the 
minds  whose  intuitions  have  been  among  the  most  important 
of  humanity's  guiding  lights.  The  conception  that  the  sub- 
liminal self  and  the  Cosmic  Soul  are  the  same,  may  yet  be 
demonstrated  to  a  clearness  that  will  place  it  among  those 
beacons. 

(Let  me  not  be  misunderstood  regarding  the  guidance  of 
intuitions.  They  point  out  promising  directions,  but  not 
always  infallibly.) 


312        Cosmic  Soul  and  Individual  Soul    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Of  the  transcendent  ego,  or  subliminal  self,  then,  as  gen- 
erally described,  I  see  no  evidence;  but  of  it  as  the  Cosmic 
Soul,  I  see  much  evidence. 

The  capacity  to  receive  the  Cosmic  Inflow  and  farther 
evolve  it  seems  to  be  in  course  of  evolution,  and  it  often  looks 
as  if  that  capacity  might,  while  we  are  yet  in  the  body, 
'enormously  enlarge  our  cosmic  relations,  through  the  dream 
state ;  and  there  is  also  enlargement  for  the  old,  old  hope  that 
when  we  leave  the  body  we  may  remain  ourselves,  and  yet 
become  "one  with  God." 

It  looks,  too,  as  if  these  possibilities  might  be  the  supreme 
justification  for  the  evolution  of  the  universe.  There  may 
be  justification  enough  in  birds  and  flowers,  in  the  play  of 
lambs  and  children,  in  sex,  in  love,  in  the  maternity  around 
which  so  much  of  the  world's  worship  has  centered,  in  know- 
ledge, in  wisdom,  even  as  they  have  been  ordinarily  under- 
stood; but  a  new  significance,  a  new  joy,  a  new  glory  over 
and  beyond  them  all  sometimes  seems  to  have  been  lately 
promised  by  that  as  yet  dim  conception  of  the  Cosmic  Soul. 

Now  in  wandering  around  amidst  these  mists  I  here  come 
upon  an  idol  whose  exaggerated  cult  I  hate,  but  there  may 
be  something  in  its  temperate  cult.  I  mean  the  idol  of 
a  priori  knowledge — the  notion  that  all  knowledge  is  in  the 
mind,  waiting  to  be  dug  out.  Though  man's  mind  may 
not  contain  latent  all  knowledge,  assuming  a  cosmic  mind, 
of  course  all  knowledge  is  there,  and  the  German  professor 
evolving  his  camel  in  his  study,  so  far  as  he  had  any  telepathic 
communion  with  the  cosmic  mind,  was  right.  But  there  is 
no  sign  that  all  knowledge  is  in  any  human  mind  or  accessible 
by  any  human  mind,  even  in  the  dream  state.  And  unless  it 
is  there,  it  can  hardly  be  dug  out  by  contemplation  unchecked 
by  verification. 

And  now,  having  extracted  whatever  hope  or  consolation — 
or  amusement — we  may  have  been  able  to  derive  from  these 
pages  of  guesswork,  let  us  see  if  we  can  get  them  into  a 
paragraph. 

There  are  unquestioned  facts — abundance  of  them  outside 
so-called  mediumship — that  demonstrate  something  in  man 


Ch.  XXI]     Th*  True  Mysticism  and  the  False  313 

beyond  his  surface  faculties,  to  which  the  terms  transcendent 
ego  and  subliminal  self  have  been  applied.  But  is  that  ego 
merely  of  himself  ?  Does  it  not  seem  to  be  rather  each  man's 
share — that  portion  which  the  individual's  conformation  and 
circumstances  permit  to  pass  into  him — of  that  which  tran- 
scends our  conception,  and  of  which  we  confess  our  incapacity 
wholly  to  conceive,  by  such  words  as  infinite  and  eternal,  and 
which  we  attempt  to  express  by  such  metaphors  as  "  kinship 
with  the  gods,"  or  the  better  one  of  "God  in  us"?  If  in 
that  later  metaphor  we  must  include  universal  motion,  why 
not  universal  mind? 

Around  this  vague  conception,  more  perhaps  than  anywhere 
else,  center  the  vague  lights  that  we  have  on  this  whole  subject. 
I  shall  try  to  indicate  them  wherever  we  meet  them,  but  all 
my  indications  will  necessarily  be  vague,  and  many  of  them 
inevitably  mistaken;  and  as  I  have  revised  my  work  I  have 
come  to  fear  that  my  persistency  in  these  attempts  will  sorely 
try  your  patience.  But  I  believe  the  attempts  would  be 
much  surer  and  less  trying  if  the  many  men  who  have  trod 
these  misty  paths  before,  every  one  of  whom  seems  to  have 
seen  those  lights,  had  tried  more  persistently  to  follow  their 
indications ;  and  I  believe  that  the  ultimate  solution  will  be 
found  among  them. 

I  hope  this  chapter  may  have  suggested  some  of  the  wider 
notions  of  mind  which  recent  experience  demands.  Yet  it  is 
very  largely  analogy  and  imagination.  I  don't  propose  to 
go  to  the  stake  for  it,  or  send  anybody  else  for  denying  it. 
But,  if  you  please,  it  is  not  all  analogy  or  imagination,  but  it 
has  a  very  visible  claim  to  being  hypothesis  based  on  un- 
questionable facts.  While  we  have  been  groping  in  the  dark 
it  has  been  a  dark  where  some  pretty  definite  things  have  kept 
turning  up  in  some  very  suggestive  ways. 

Speculation  to  account  for  facts,  however  mystic  it  may 
be,  is  a  very  different  matter  from  the  mysticism  which  scorns 
facts,  and  seeks  truth  only  as  visions  and  telepathic  impres- 
sions from  assumed  mystic  intelligences — often  through  the 
mortification  of  the  flesh  and  vexations  of  the  spirit,  which 
seldom  find  truth,  and  generally  weaken  the  powers  that  seek  it. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
MIND  AND  BRAIN  AGAIN 

Now  let  us  go  on  to  some  facts  in  the  general  constitution 
of  mind  which  support  the  preposterous  jumble  of  propositions 
in  the  last  two  chapters.  Possibly  as  we  proceed,  they  may 
seem  less  preposterous,  and  we  may  even  find  them  supported, 
if  that's  not  too  big  a  word,  by  others. 

But  let  us  keep  safe  in  the  realization  that,  until  all  are 
verified,  we  must  not  assume  them  to  be  true,  but  equally 
realizing  that  verified  fancy  is  the  chief  source  of  progress. 

These  chapters  are  very  repetitious.  It  has  been  said  often, 
but  is  not  apt  to  be  said  too  often,  that  the  first  essential  of 
good  writing  is  knowing  what  you  are  writing  about.  Now 
I  am  writing  about  certain  facts,  but  as  to  the  inferences  from 
them,  I  don't  know :  nobody  knows :  we  are  all  guessing ;  but 
somebody  must  do  the  guessing  and  the  bad  writing — bookfuls 
of  it — if  our  descendants  are  to  know.  The  "  common  law  " 
of  our  Cosmic  Relations  is  going  to  be  in  no  small  degree 
developed,  as  much  of  the  common  law  of  our  Civic  Relations 
has  been  developed,  by  "  text  writers  "  correlating  the  cases. 

The  vague  notions  of  a  cosmic  mind  are  dimmed  by  the 
indications  that  mind  is  but  a  persistent  individual  secre- 
tion of  brain;  but  the  vague  conceptions  clear  up  again  so 
far  as  we  are  able  to  think  of  mind  as  independent  of  brain. 
Some  reasons  for  so  thinking  were  given  in  Chapter  III. 
There  are  others  that  I  did  not  give  there,  because  I  thought 
that  they  would  be  less  tedious  here,  where  they  could  be  con- 
sidered in  connection  with  telepathy. 

We  have  seen  some  indications  that  mind  may  be  not  a 
product  of  our  mechanical  part,  but  a  redistribution,  into 
combinations  ever  growing  higher,  of  a  primordial  element 
like  force  and  matter — an  element  inherent  in  each  atom 
of  our  structure,  and  also,  like  force  and  matter,  constantly 
flowing  into  us  from  the  external  universe,  and  constantly 
going  out.  This  primordial  element  I  have  already,  probably 
314 


Ch.  XXII]  Mind  Potential  Varies  315 

following  somebody  whom  I  have  forgotten,  termed  "  mind- 
potential."  But  I  would  now  expand  that  term  to  cover 
anything,  from  whatever  it  is  that  leads  an  amoeba  to  contract 
when  touched  (while  any  inorganic  thing  that  looks  like 
it,  will  not)  up  to  whatever  any  psychic  organism  works  over 
into  something  else — up  to,  say,  the  effects  on  the  sensoria 
of  the  sounds  in  Nature  which  Beethoven  works  into  a  great 
piece  of  music,  or  the  woodland  colors  and  murmurs  which 
inspired  "  Thanatopsis,"  or  the  charms  of  womanhood  which 
have  bred  an  infinite  variety  of  poems.  Moreover,  each 
product  of  mind  becomes  mind-potential  for  farther  products : 
so  under  that  term  I  would  include  even  the  impressions 
made  on  the  sitter  or  reader  by  an  alleged  personality  ex- 
pressed through  a  sensitive. 

And  there  is  not  only  more  mind,  but  higher  mind.  Mind- 
potential,  from  its  lowest  to  its  highest  forms,  is  constantly 
worked  into  higher  forms,  new  thoughts,  feelings,  impulses, 
all  sorts  of  mental  and  emotional  products.  If,  then,  there 
is  a  cosmic  soul,  it  would  seem  as  already  intimated  to  be 
constantly  growing  by  accretions  from  the  souls  developed  on 
the  planets. 

The  material  for  furnishing  copies  of  those  individual 
souls,  or  so  much  of  them  as  is  worth  copying,  seems  to  be 
all  there.  Some  specially  gifted  persons,  more  or  less  in  the 
dream  state,  and  all  of  us  in  ordinary  dreams,  are  able  to 
recover  portions  when  even  the  memory  of  the  originators 
cannot.  And  the  mind-product  can  be  recovered  not  only 
from  each  one's  own  memories,  but  from  each  other's  mem- 
ories, and  apparently  in  much  greater  degree,  independently  of 
the  body,  from  some  cosmic  reservoir  of  all  memories. 

Mind's  independence  of  the  body,  and  its  inflow  to  the 
individual  from  outside  is  farther  suggested  by  the  following 
group  of  considerations,  some  of  which  we  have  seen  before 
from  a  different  point,  or  used  before  for  a  different  purpose. 

I.  As  we  have  seen,  the  matter  and  motion  constituting 
a  man  can  be  in  only  one  place  at  one  time,  but  his  thoughts 
and  emotions  can  be  in  any  number  of  places  at  any  number 
of  times. 

II.  Mind,  unlike  matter  and  force,  is  free  from  limitation 


316  Mind  and  Brain  Again    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

and  measurability.  Motion  disposes  itself  toward  measure- 
ment in  the  most  obliging  manner :  it  sets  part  of  itself  off  in 
the  form  of  matter,  which  part  we  can  measure  readily ;  it  also 
places  some  of  the  remaining  and  imponderable  part  of  itself 
at  our  disposition  so  that  we  can  measure  it  by  its  effects 
upon  matter.  Even  when  it  is  amusing  itself  in  blowing  down 
forests,  or  tumbling  seas,  or  splitting  up  the  earth,  or  swing- 
ing planets,  we  can  still  measure  it,  but  only  by  its  effects 
upon  matter. 

We  cannot  similarly  measure  mind.  We  can  reduce  to 
foot-pounds  the  power  that  rolls  Neptune  for  a  year;  but  we 
would  never  think  of  reducing  to  foot-pounds  the  thoughts 
of  Bismarck  that  built  the  German  Empire,  or  even  those  of 
Moltke  that  moved  the  armies  which  took  part  in  the  building. 
And  yet,  such  is  the  continuity  of  the  universe  that  strict 
classification  fails  here  as  everywhere;  the  differences  ail 
around  are  but  differences  of  degree.  Mind  is  measurable, 
but  thus  far  only  in  ways  too  insignificant  to  be  worth  taking 
into  account.  We  can  already,  to  some  extent,  measure  it  by 
its  effect  on  matter,  through  the  sphygmograph,  for  instance, 
and  we  shall  measure  it  more;  but  it  is  hard  to  foresee  that 
we  shall  measure  it  much.  To  measure  mind  as  completely 
as  we  measure  force  we  would  have  to  know  even  more  re- 
condite things  than  how  many  foot-pounds  bring  the  flash 
to  the  hero's  eye,  or  the  blush  to  the  maiden's  cheek.  And 
if  we  should  ever  think  we  had  got  the  thing  cornered,  there 
might  escape  from  somebody  one  little  thought  that  would  set 
all  the  men's  eyes  in  the  world  flashing  and  all  the  maidens' 
cheeks  blushing,  and  would  prove  our  measurements  naught. 

III.  A  given  mental  individuality  varies  from  time  to  time 
more  than  its  physical  companion,  the  brain.  The  healthy 
powers  of  the  body  vary  but  little,  but  in  inspiration  and 
dream  (including  somnambulism,  trance,  etc.),  the  powers 
of  the  mind  immensely  surpass  its  ordinary  powers.  These 
enormous  differences  take  place  in  the  same  person,  and  so 
suggest  at  least  a  partial  independence  of  the  brain.  The 
inference  springing  from  these  differences,  so  far  as  I  know, 
philosophers  have,  up  to  date,  treated  very  queerly.  On  one 
hand,  they  have  ignored  it;  they  all,  so  far  as  I  know,  gen- 
erally assume  that  the  colossal  powers  a  man  shows  only 


Ch.  XXII]       Mind  Does  Not  Vary  as  Brain  317 

occasionally  are  carried  about  with  him  all  the  time.  A 
more  reasonable  inference  seems  to  be  that  they  are  not, 
but  they  are  temporary  increases  in  the  flow  into  him  from 
the  Cosmic  Soul.  And  on  the  other  hand,  of  the  philosophers 
I  know  who  ordinarily  ignore  this  inference,  most,  if  not  all, 
incidentally  imply  it  in  such  passages  as  those  already  quoted 
regarding  the  Cosmic  Soul. 

IV.  Minds  differ  more  than  brains  do  in  amount,  and  at 
least  in  mechanical   structure.    Just  how  much  weight  to 
attach  to  this  we  don't  know:  for  there  may  be  differences 
in  molecular  structure  that,  if  we  knew  them,  would  account 
for  the  differences  in  mind.    Yet  Dr.  William  Hanna  Thom- 
son assures  me  that  so  far  as  we  know,  the  differences  in  brains, 
when    compared    with    the    differences    in    minds,    are    as 
nothing. 

V.  In  addition  to  the  enormous  differences  in  amount  be- 
tween the  psychical  manifestations  of  different  individuals  or 
of  the  same  individual  at  different  times,  there  seems  to  be 
another  line  of  cleavage  which  may  indicate  something  im- 
portant.    On  one  side  of  the  line  is  the  group  of  manifesta- 
tions which  are  (a)  under  voluntary  control,  (b)  shown  by 
all  men,  and  (c)  running  closely  parallel  with  manifestations 
of  physical  force,  as  shown  in  increased  flow  of  blood  and 
consumption  of  tissue,  and  subsequent  fatigue  corresponding 
with  the  intensity  and  duration  of  the  psychical  manifesta- 
tions.    On  the  other  side  is  a  group  of  manifestations  (a)  not 
under  the  control  of  the  individual,    (b)    almost  entirely 
(except  in  dreams)   outside  the  experience  of  ordinary  in- 
dividuals, and  (c)  not  usually  accompanied  by  any  noticeable 
expenditure  of  physical  force.     With  certain  qualifications, 
which  I  will  immediately  specify,  this  second  group  includes 
inspirations,  visions  waking  and  sleeping,  nearly  all — perhaps 
all — veridical  dreams,  and  nearly  all — perhaps  all — pleasant 
ones,  and  all  the  phenomena  of  somnambulism,  hypnotism, 
and  trance,  and  automatic  writing  and  the  other  forms  of 
mediumship.    For  convenience'  sake,  all  of  these  are  generally 
included  under  the  phrase  "  the  dream  state,"  even  inspira- 
tion being  often  included  with  them.     Inspiration  is  perhaps 
the  principal  borderland  where  the  two  groups,  like  all  groups 
divided  by  human  classification,  shade  into  each  other. 


318  Mind  and  Brain  Again    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Ordinary  dreams  belong  with  the  second  group — of  psycho- 
ses apparently  independent  of  physical  function,  in  so  far  as 
they  are  not  to  any  extent  under  the  control  of  the  individual, 
are  apparently  not  experienced  by  all  men,  and  do  not  gen- 
erally involve  any  appreciable  waste  of  force  and  tissue.  But 
they  are  far  from  being  unqualifiedly  in  the  second  group, 
because  they  are  appreciably  under  the  control  of  some  men 
(Stevenson  and  van  Eeden,  for  instance)  and  are  experienced 
by  a  very  large  portion  of  mankind.  In  short,  they,  like 
inspiration,  are  on  the  borderland  between  ordinary  psychic 
processes,  and  those  which  seem  to  be  largely  in  the  tran- 
scendent universe. 

The  classification  of  the  two  groups  js  rough  and  tentative, 
partly  because  with  our  present  knowledge  we  cannot  be 
very  sure  of  our  material — we  cannot  be  sure  we  have  exact 
recollections  of  even  our  "best"  dreams,  and  of  many  we 
have  hardly  any  recollections  at  all.  But  the  classification 
seems  fairly  to  fit  what  material  we  have,  and  will  be  found 
to  make  a  farther  fit  with  some  wider  classifications  to  be 
attempted  later.  The  differences  are  clear  enough  (and  that 
is  the  point  I  am  after),  and  suggest  inflows  through  different 
channels — one  from  our  worldly  experiences,  the  others  direct 
from  the  cosmic  mind. 

As  already  noticed,  "  the  dream-state  "  evinces  powers  en- 
tirely surpassing  those  of  the  vigilant  state — in  the  reception 
of  higher-developed  mind-potential,  the  vivifying  of  fainter 
memories,  the  solution  of  harder  problems,  the  transcending 
of  time  and  space,  the  reception  of  telepathic  impressions,  the 
veridical  copies  of  personalities  incarnate  and  (alleged)  post- 
carnate,  etc.,  etc.  All  these  capacities  seem  illimitable,  and 
again  suggest  inflows  from  an  illimitable  source. 

The  first  of  the  groups  of  capacities — those  of  waking  hours 
that  are  common  to  all  men,  and  subject  to  each  man's  control, 
we  more  readily  assume  to  be  in  some  way  peculiarly  his — 
originated  in  his  brain  from  the  reactions  of  his  soul  with 
the  universe — or  even  the  secretion  of  his  brain,  than  we  can 
assume  the  same  of  those  exceptional  capacities  in  the  second 
group  which  comparatively  few  men  display,  and  no  man  to 
any  great  extent  controls. 

I  think  we  shall  find  weight  added  to  this  suggestion  as 


Ch.  XXII]          Dreams  and  Tax  on  Tissue  319 

we  go  on  to  consider  illustrative  details  of  the  manifestation 
of  the  exceptional  and  more  or  less  involuntary  powers. 

In  marking  the  differences  between  the  two  groups,  one 
qualification  is  that  although  in  the  long  run  some  phenomena 
of  the  dream-state  do  seem  something  of  a  physical  tax, 
and  even  characterize  some  forms  of  invalidism,  they  occur 
more  markedly  with  people  in  good  health,  and  it  is  generally 
when  they  present  anything  shocking  or  distressful  that  they 
are  attended  by  noticeable  waste  of  force  and  tissue.  Doubts 
have  been  thrown  on  this,  the  old  ascetic  idea  of  mortification 
of  the  flesh  has  even  been  held  out  as  essential  to  mediumship. 
As  a  cause,  this  is  not  true  at  all ;  and  as  a  result,  it  is  seldom 
true  farther  than  the  fatigue  occasioned  by  telekinesis.  The 
cases  of  Foster,  Colville,  Tuttle,  Davis,  Mrs.  Piper,  Mrs. 
Thompson  are  all  the  other  way.  Moses  had  rather  defective 
health,  and  so  had  Home,  but  their  cases  make  no  larger  pro- 
portion of  the  whole  than  would  be  those  of  the  defectives 
among  people  not  mediumistic. 

In  psychosis  apparently  freed  from  physical  parallelism, 
we  may  include  much  of  the  experience,  perhaps  all  the  best 
experience,  of  the  mediums.  Foster  showed  no  more  fatigue 
in  his  cheerful  sitting  with  me  than  any  other  equally  long 
sitting  at  a  table  would  naturally  involve,  though  he  did  show 
much  from  his  more  terrible  experiences,  as  already  narrated 
in  the  extracts  from  Bartlett.  And  Mrs.  Piper,  when  favor- 
ably circumstanced  and  well  taken  care  of,  seems  better  for 
her  trances  than  without  them.  Colville,  we  saw,  emphatic- 
ally testified  the  same  thing,  and  the  general  testimony  is  to 
the  same  effect. 

Of  course  this  question  of  parallelism  in  the  higher  psycho- 
ses may  be  settled  before  long  by  experiment,  though  it  is 
not  easy  to  get  together  the  proper  conditions  of  experi- 
ment. 

Meanwhile  the  considerations  expressed  in  the  last  few 
pages  seem  to  offer  a  strong  hint  that  there  may  be  some 
modes  of  mental  action  without  any  physical  correlate.  In- 
deed have  we  not  long  been  familiar  in  the  dream-state  with 
features  that  may  perhaps  be  more  easily  accounted  for  by  a 
hyper-physical  or  metaphysical  psychosis  than  on  any  other 
theory  yet  in  sight? 


320  Mind  and  Brain  Again     [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

This  hypothesis  may  throw  some  light  on  telepathy  and 
receive  some  from  it.  A  fundamental  difficulty  with  telepathy 
is  the  assumed  lack  of  a  physical  medium  for  transmission 
of  the  assumed  physical  changes  in  the  agent's  brain  to  the 
brain  of  the  recipient.  Possibly  one  is  not  needed,  but  if  one 
is,  why  are  we  not  as  much  at  liberty  to  assume  an  ether  for 
these  assumed  vibrations  as  we  have  been  to  assume  an  ether 
for  light  or  heat?  But  is  it  inconceivable  that  we  may  yet 
find  that  in  the  phenomena  involving  telepathy  we  can  drop 
questions  of  "  energy  "  and  "  neural  tremors  "  altogether  ? 
Apparently  such  a  result  will  be  inevitable  if  telepathy  from 
discarnate  intelligences  shall  ever  be  accepted  as  part  of 
established  science. 

In  this  connection  the  following  remarks  by  Myers  are 
well  worth  considering  (Pr.  VI,  3201)  : 

"  When  we  come  to  telergy, — to  the  power  of  propagating  in- 
fluences or  phantasms  at  a  distance  [and,  shall  we  add,  of  receiv- 
ing them  when  awake  or  asleep?  H.H.] — then  the  familiar  paral- 
lelism between  bodily  and  mental  states  assumes  a  quite 
strained  and  hypothetical  air.  At  first ...  we  spoke  of  phan- 
tasms coincident  with  moments  of  death  or  crises,  as  though 
a  strong  upheaval  of  the  conscious  being  disengaged  some  in- 
fluence which  might  be  felt  afar  off.  But  as  further  cases 
were  gathered  in  it  became  clear  that  the  '  crisis '  which  facili- 
tated telergic  action  was  not  necessarily  a  moment  of  conscious 
excitement  or  strain.  Quite  otherwise;  for  it  was  found  that 
the  '  agent,'  at  the  moment  of  the  apparition,  was  often  asleep, 
or  fainting,  or  even  in  a  state  of  coma.  Not  the  moment  of 
death  alone,  but  also  the  hours  of  abeyance  and  exhaustion 
which  precede  death,  were  found  apt  to  generate  these  appear- 
ances. Nor  is  the  moment  of  death  itself,  under  ordinary 
circumstances,  a  moment  of  impulse  or  exaltation.  Far  oftener 
it  is  an  imperceptible  extinction  of  energies  which  hare  already 
waned  almost  into  nothingness. 

"It  would,  then,  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  telergic 
action  varies  inversely  than  that  it  varies  directly,  with  the 
observable  activity  of  the  nervous  system  or  of  the  conscious 
mind."  [Of.,  my  suggestion  earlier  regarding  brain  change 
varying  inversely  as  the  grade  of  the  psychic  process.  H.  H.] 
"  And  it  follows  that  the  presumption  commonly  urged  against 
the  conscious  mind's  continuance  after  bodily  decay  loses  much 
of  its  force  when  we  are  considering  this  new-found  form  of 
mental  energy, — so  much  less  manifestly  dependent  upon  bodily 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
THE  IDEA 

BUT  before  we  go  on  to  explore  the  deeper  mysteries,  or,  it 
may  be,  the  higher  heights,  perhaps  we  had  better  put  into 
our  rucksacks  another  notion  as  old  as  philosophy,  of  which 
not  much  use  has  been  made  lately,  but  which,  like  the  Cosmic 
Soul,  is  touched  upon  by  pretty  much  everybody,  and  which 
seems  to  gain  new  significance  under  the  light  of  recent 
developments. 

We  will  perhaps  best  approach  it  indirectly.  You  and  I 
enter  the  Metropolitan  Museum  from  Fifth  Avenue.  I  try  to 
turn  to  the  right,  but  you  say :  "  No !  Let's  go  on  and  see 
the  Parthenon."  I  go  with  you  to  the  model  of  the  restora- 
tion, and  say :  "  Why,  this  is  much  more  the  Parthenon  than 
the  ruins  on  the  Acropolis,"  and  you  answer:  "Oh,  if  we 
could  only  have  seen  the  real  one ! "  I  suggest :  "  If  you're 
so  much  devoted  to  it,  why  don't  you  devote  some  of  your 
oppressive  wealth  to  having  it  restored  on  the  spot?  Perhaps 
the  Greek  government  would  be  happy  to  have  you."  And 
you,  being  of  rather  a  romantic  turn,  object :  "  But  that 
wouldn't  be  the  Parthenon."  I  ask :"  Why  not  ?  Couldn't 
you  leave  all  that's  there  now,  to  keep  up  the  associations  ?  " 

You  say :  "  Perhaps,  but  the  real  architect  couldn't  superin- 
tend it."  I  answer :  "  If  that  counts,  there's  hardly  a  cathe- 
dral in  Europe  that  lofty  souls  like  yours  have  any  right  to 
gush  over:  for  there's  hardly  one  that  was  finished  in  the 
lifetime  of  the  architect,  or  within  that  of  anybody  who  ever 
saw  him.  On  the  same  principle,  Beethoven's  last  quartets, 
regarded  by  many  connoisseurs  as  the  greatest  music  in  the 
world,  are  not  the  real  thing :  for  he  never  heard  them  played : 
he  composed  them  after  he  was  deaf.  And  yet  so  far  wrong 
is  your  contention  that  the  work  is  not  complete  unless  its 
creator  supervises  its  production,  that  Beethoven's  deafness 
is  regarded  by  some  as  having  been  a  prerequisite  of  that  great 


322  The  Idea  [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

music :  it  is  doubted  if  his  inspirations  could  have  been  so 
wonderful  if  they  had  been  interrupted  by  any  external  sounds. 
Observe,  too,  please,  in  this  connection,  that,  as  there  can  be 
an  indefinite  number  of  legitimate  copies  of  the  music,  or 
renderings  of  it,  it  seems  reasonable  that  there  could  be  as 
many  legitimate  Parthenons." 

"  The  architect's  plan,  then,"  you  suggest,  "  must  be  the 
real  thing." 

"  In  the  hands  of  the  workmen,"  I  answer,  "  there  were  a 
dozen  copies  of  it,  and  possibly  the  original  draft  itself.  Is 
any  one  of  them  more  'the  real  thing'  than  the  other?  Or 
would  the  first  draft  be  more  'the  real  thing'  than  any 
other  ?  The  '  real  thing,'  then,  as  you  have  probably  antici- 
pated, is  'the  temple  not  built  with  hands' — the  Idea  in 
the  mind  of  the  genius:  the  architect's  plan,  like  the  com- 
poser's notes  or  the  poet's  writing,  is  merely  an  expression 
of  it;  and  any  one  of  the  three  can  be  read  from  the  paper 
and  received  by  another  mind,  without  marble,  or  musical 
instrument,  or  speech." 

Ideas  are  the  nearest  to  permanent  of  human  productions. 
Buildings  crumble,  men  die,  all  portraits  of  them  vanish ;  still 
the  Ideas  of  them  seem  indestructible.  The  Idea  of  St.  Mark's 
Campanile  has  just  been  expressed  again  after  what  some 
would  presume  to  call  "  the  real  thing  "  fell.  The  Iliad  was 
not  in  writing:  it  was  merely  given  to  the  air  by  the  poet's 
voice,  and  yet  it  outlasts  Greece  and  Eome ;  and  many  a  little 
poem  survives,  fresh  and  perfect,  while  the  Pyramids  crumble. 
The  streams  of  force  and  matter  that  built  up  the  bodies  of 
generations  pass  on  as  their  works  decay,  while  the  streams 
of  mind  going  through  the  same  bodies  build  Ideas  that  do 
not  die.  They  live  not  only  in  the  minds  and  records  of  suc- 
ceeding generations,  but  as  the  pervasiveness  of  mind  seems 
unlimited,  they  seem  also  to  survive  in  the  Cosmos  inde- 
pendently of  the  generations  of  men. 

When,  as  in  dreams  and  trances,  we  are  not  occupied  with 
the  phenomena  called  the  material  world,  copies  of  the  Ideas 
come  in  upon  us  from  unlimited  distances  in  time  and  space. 
Sometimes  the  artist  draws  them,  just  as  the  architect's  assist- 
ants do ;  or  as  some  artist,  thousands  of  years  after  the  archi- 
tect is  dead,  extracts  his  Idea  from  the  ruins  or  some  other 


Ch.  XXIII]  Plato  on  The  Idea  323 

manifestation.  William  Blake,  as  he  happens  to  be  both  seer 
and  artist,  sees  and  reproduces  any  number  of  strange  people 
and  things  from  ancient  or  distant  environments;  and  with 
such  vraisemblance  that  it  is  hard,  and  probably  unnecessary, 
to  believe  that  the  originals  never  had  "  material  "  form.  And 
in  dreams  we  all  of  us  see  similar  things,  both  clearly  and 
jumbled  up.  "  See  "  is  a  limited  and  inaccurate  term.  Our 
senses  are  of  course  mere  machines  for  doing  what  some  of  us, 
in  some  conditions,  can  do  a  great  deal  better  without  them. 
This  generalization  goes  even  so  far  as  our  muscles.  Under 
some  circumstances,  just  as  the  telepsychic  genius  has  no  need 
of  senses,  the  telekinetic  genius  has  no  need  of  muscles.  Thus 
we  get  a  glimpse  of  what  seems  to  be  a  soul  without  the  need  of 
a  body.  And  yet  we  get  no  glimpse  of  any  way  in  which  that 
soul  could  have  been  developed  without  a  body.  We  do  get 
a  glimpse,  however,  of  its  ultimately,  after  being  developed, 
getting  along  without  a  body;  and  in  the  apparent  relations 
of  the  individual  soul  with  the  cosmic  soul,  we  get  a  glimpse 
of  how. 

The  foreshadowing  of  this  set  of  notions  in  Plato  is  probably 
the  nearest  distinct  of  those  heretofore  presented.  As  dug 
out  by  Weber  (I  am  through  digging  in  Plato,  for  myself  or 
even  for  my  readers),  it  relates  to  at  least  two  distinct  things 
—one,  abstract  or  generalized  ideas — beauty,  strength,  wisdom, 
as  distinguished  from  beautiful,  strong,  and  wise  persons; 
the  other  nearly  what  I  have  tried  to  express:  he  says,  for 
instance  (or  Weber  says  for  him,  op.  cit.t  84) : 

"  The  Ideas  are  the  models  or  the  originals,  and  the  natural 
beings  or  the  individuals  are  the  copies. . . .  They  are  the 
thoughts  of  God,  which  no  human  intelligence  can  wholly  re- 
produce, but  which  are  none  the  leas  real,  absolutely  real." 

But  he  goes  on  (op.  cit.f  p.  84) : 

"  Now,  every  beautiful  object,  be  it  a  man  or  a  statue,  an  act 
or  an  individual,  is  doomed  to  destruction  and  oblivion;  beauty 
in  itself  is  imperishable." 

Now  I  have  tried  to  clarify  an  impression  not  merely  that 
generalities  are  indestructible  (as  they  can  be  in  a  succession 
of  particulars  even  if  the  particulars  be  perishable  in  detail), 
but  that  behind  each  particular  thing  is  an  individual  Id( 


324  The  Idea  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

may  I  say  a  concrete  Idea  ? — which  is  indestructible ;  and  that 
all  things  which  appeal  to  the  senses  are  merely  copies  of 
the  Idea  which  transcends  the  senses — that  this  is  true  even 
of  our  bodies,  and  that  when  they  are  gone  the  Idea  sur- 
vives. 

Weber  says  of  this  conception  as  expressed  by  Plato 
(pp.  85-6) : 

"  To  sum  up :  (1)  The  Ideas  are  real  beings;  (2)  the  Ideas 
are  more  real  than  the  objects  of  sense;  (3)  the  Ideas  are  the 
only  true  realities;  the  objects  of  sense  possess  a  merely  bor- 
rowed existence,  a  reality  which  they  receive  from  the  Ideas. 
The  Ideas  are  the  eternal  patterns  (mzparfefyuara)  after  which 
the  things  of  sense  are  made;  the  latter  are  the  images  («<fc>*<z), 
the  imitations,  the  imperfect  copies  (opoiu/iaTa,  funfoeif).  The 
entire  sensible  world  is  nothing  but  a  symbol,  an  allegory,  or 
a  figure  of  speech.  The  meaning,  the  Idea  expressed  by  the 
thing,  alone  concerns  the  philosopher.  His  interest  in  the  sen- 
sible world  is  like  our  interest  in  the  portrait  of  a  friend  of 
whose  living  presence  we  are  deprived. 

"  The  world  of  sense  is  the  copy  of  the  world  of  Ideas ;  and 
conversely  the  world  of  Ideas  resembles  its  image.  Parmenides, 
132;  Timceus,  48." 

Not  only  do  Ideas  seem  stored  up  somewhere  independently 
of  human  minds,  but  are  there  not  indications  that  Ideas  are 
produced  there — that  there  are  possible  sources  of  all  the 
ideas  which  reach  us,  even  those  of  us  who  cannot  express 
them  ?  As  one  such,  I  know  that,  as  I  shall  particularize  later, 
I  have  seen  things  in  my  dreams  superior  to  any  that  human 
art  has  yet  accomplished,  and  so,  I  presume,  have  others. 
Itfay,  we  all  know  that  each  supreme  work  of  art  is  a  presenta- 
tion of  such  an  Idea,  whether  it  came  in  an  ordinary  dream 
•or  in  a  waking  inspiration.  But  of  those  who  have  thus  ex- 
pressed any  work,  I  have  never  met  the  recorded  experience 
'(pace  Poe's  doubtful  account  of  "  The  Eaven  ")  of  one  who 
•claims  to  have  created  it  himself.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  all 
•eager  to  claim  that  they  were  "  inspired  "  by  the  muse  or  the 
god  or  the  daimone — whatever  anthropomorphic  character 
they  may  have  given  to  the  power  not  themselves.  If  asked 
if  they  are  proud  of  their  work,  they  convey  as  best  they  can 
the  feeling  that  they  are  proud  of  being  so  constituted  as  to 
be — of  being  selected  to  be — the  mediums  of  their  inspira- 
tions from  their  respective  divinities. 


Ch.  XXIII]    Inspiration,  Subliminal  Self,  Cosmic  Sovl     325 

Now  Du  Prel,  Myers,  and  their  school  want  to  dethrone 
those  old  divinities,  and  deprive  the  artist  of  his  claim  to  be 
the  agent  of  a  higher  power ;  and  so  have  provided  him  with 
their  "subliminal  self,"  which  throws  out  these  splendid 
things  as  a  spring  throws  water — a  consciousness  of  his  own — 
he  does  it  himself  after  all;  but  they  haven't  told  us  where 
are  the  headwaters  of  the  spring. 

I  suspect  both  sides  are  right,  as  they  are  in  so  many  world- 
old  battles.  The  artist  is  inspired  by  the  god,  and  the  god — 
the  cosmic  soul — is  his  subliminal  consciousness,  as  the  cosmic 
force  is  the  motive  power  of  his  heart.  You  may  not  under- 
stand how  it  is  so  (I  certainly  do  not),  but  while  you  can 
begin  by  thinking  of  the  man  and  the  cosmic  power  separately, 
you  can  no  more  round  out  a  conception  of  either  without 
including  the  other  than  you  can  round  out  a  conception  of 
the  voluntary  nervous  system  through  which  man  acts,  without 
including  the  involuntary  nervous  system  through  which  the 
cosmos  supplies  man  the  capacity  to  act.  In  this  unity  of 
"diversity,  independence  with  dependence,  free  will  linked  to 
another  will,  "  Behold !  I  show  you  a  mystery/'  This  is  of 
course  as  true  as  it  was  of  Paul's.  But  how  should  it  be 
other  than  a  mystery?  These  things  are  on  the  borderland 
of  our  knowledge,  where  the  best  we  can  do  is  to  fumble 
in  the  dark,  unless,  as  some  of  the  wisest  think,  it  were  still 
better  to  keep  out  of  the  dark  altogether.  But  some  others 
of  the  wisest  think  that  we  can  learn  very  valuable  things  there 
— perhaps  strike  an  electric  switch :  so  let  us  fumble  a  little 
farther. 

Every  creation  of  man — from  tool  to  temple — has  behind 
it  an  Idea — the  man's  Idea  furnished  him  by  the  God.  An 
object  of  Nature  expresses  "God's"  Idea  direct,  not  com- 
municated through  man.  In  a  portrait,  it  is  expressed  in 
another  form  by  man,  as  the  builder  expresses  the  architect's 
idea.  But  back  of  each  object  of  art  or  Nature,  there  lies  the 
Idea.  (See  p.  487, 1.  8  from  bottom.) 

Now  how  about  us?  Some  of  us  are  pretty  fine  creations — 
a  few  of  us  more  beautiful,  more  august,  than  any  works  of 
art.  Was  there  an  "  Idea  " — a  "  plan  " — behind  the  creation 
of  each  one  of  us?  In  what  mind?  Certainly  not  in  the 


326  The  Idea  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

mind  of  either  parent:  neither  of  them  had  a  definite  idea 
of  what  one  of  us  would  be  like,  beyond  a  possible  remote 
composite  of  both  of  them:  anything  like  a  prophetic  sketch 
or  "  plan  "  of  one  of  us  in  their  minds  was  out  of  the  question. 
But  I  hope  I  am  not  too  wild  in  suggesting  that  somehow  the 
Idea  of  each  one  of  us  got  into  the  universe — perhaps  before 
the  spermatozoon  entered  the  ovum,  perhaps  only  as  the  in- 
dividual was  developed. 

Is  it  unreasonable,  then,  to  fancy  that  the  Idea  of  each 
of  us  was  and  is  in  the  Cosmic  Mind,  and  just  as  the  Parthe- 
non in  stone  is  but  one  copy  of  the  architect's  Idea,  so,  from 
the  "  Idea  "  of  one  of  us  in  the  Cosmic  Mind  is  constructed 
the  copy  we  know  in  carbon,  nitrogen,  oxygen,  hydrogen, 
iron,  and  a  few  other  elements?  That  copy  resists  pressure 
and,  varying  a  good  deal  in  dimensions  and  details,  sometimes 
abides  a  hundred  years.  It  assimilates  food,  wastes  tissues, 
sees,  hears,  thinks,  feels,  talks,  and  interchanges  thoughts  and 
feelings,  and  is  in  all  ways  apparent  to  our  waking  senses. 
Those  Ideas  have  also  been  expressed  in  various  other  copies — 
descriptions,  photographs,  paintings,  statues — as  well  as  in 
our  bodies  and  souls  themselves. 

Then  outside  of  our  ordinary  waking  senses,  in  vision, 
dream,  trance,  still  other  copies  are  presented.  These  other 
copies  do  not  abide  with  us  long,  though  they  return,  and  they 
do  think,  feel,  talk,  weep,  laugh,  interchange  thoughts  and 
feelings,  resist  pressure,  and  perform  other  physical  functions, 
certainly  the  most  intense  of  them,  though  they  may  not  have 
been  observed  to  perform  all.  Thus  the  expressions  of  an  Idea 
are  both  physical  and  psychical.  Apparently  the  more  impor- 
tant expression  is  the  psychic — so  important  that  even  while 
the  two  are  together,  from  Homer  down  to  Lincoln,  the  phys- 
ical one  sometimes  appears  to  have  been  only  ancillary — 
evolved  only  that  it  might  promote  the  evolution  of  the  other. 
The  physical  expression  in  time  'disappears  before  our  eyes. 
The  Idea  on  its  psychic  side  (assuming  its  existence  and 
reasoning  from  the  Ideas  of  other  things)  seems  somehow  not 
subject  to  death,  and  we  often  act  on  assumptions  possibly 
no  wilder  than  that  it  may  find  farther  expression  after  the 
death  of  the  copy  we  call  the  body. 

As  the  Idea  behind  the  San  Marco  Campanile  was  capable 


Ch.  XXIII]    The  Expression  Goes,  The  Idea  Abides       327 

of  resurrection  though  the  bricks  fell,  so,  we  have  some  faint 
evidence,  abide  the  Ideas  behind  our  visible  frames,  though 
their  atoms  disintegrate ;  and  so,  apparently  much  more  prob- 
ably, abide  the  Ideas  constituting  our  psychic  individualities. 
They  keep  bobbing  up  in  the  most  unexpected  and  inex- 
haustible ways  from  what  has  been  called  the  subliminal  soul, 
and  what  some  of  us  prefer  to  call  the  cosmic  soul.  They 
come  up  in  ordinary  dreams  and  in  all  sorts  of  visions ;  come 
up  in  copies  which  closely  duplicate  the  familiar  "  living " 
body  and  "living"  soul,  and  have  sometimes  made  com- 
munications later  demonstrated  to  have  been  "true,"  and 
sometimes  more  important  than  anything  in  our  waking  life. 
We  know  as  a  fact  that  these  dream  copies  have  apparently 
been  expressed  over  and  over  again,  often  very  strikingly, 
through  many  "  mediums,"  and  there  would  be  no  little  justi- 
fication for  calling  gratuitous  the  efforts  to  make  them  out 
anything  less  than  copies.  The  dream  copies  as  presented  by 
the  mediums,  are  not  always  as  complete  or  as  convincing  as 
the  copy  our  faculties  have  enabled  us  to  know  during  ordinary 
life,  or  as  the  copies  in  our  own  dreams.  But  there  is  a  strong 
presumption  that  the  expressions  through  the  mediums  may 
not  be  convincing  because  the  method  of  expression  is  poor. 
We  know,  too,  that  this  later  sort  of  expression  is  very  recent, 
and,  like  many  faculties  under  evolution,  unaccountably  spo- 
radic, and  appears  to  be  as  yet  in  a  stage  very  elementary 
compared  with  a  possible  later  one. 

Now  with  these  demonstrations,  such  as  they  are,  to  our 
presumably  elementary  apprehension,  such  as  it  is,  of  the  sur- 
vival of  the  Idea,  and  of  its  various  presentations,  is  it  wildly 
extravagant  to  suppose  that  the  Idea  really  does  survive  death 
in  new  expressions — new  bodies  even,  to  which  the  one  with 
which  we  are  familiar  may  be  merely  preliminary  and  rudi- 
mentary ? 

This  is  not  sheer  guesswork  built  up  on  a  jumble  of  words 
which  in  themselves  are  but  professions  of  ignorance:  it  is  a 
tentative  interpretation  of  facts,  which  we  have  got  to  inter- 
pret somehow,  or  resign  the  right  and  responsibility  to  use 
our  intellects.  It  may  be  all  wrong,  but  doesn't  it  seem  to 
be  in  a  direction  where  truth  may  ultimately  appear  more 
clearly? 


328  The  Idea  [Bk.  II,  Pt  IV 

I  have  deliberately  put  some  chapters  of  guesswork  re- 
garding these  psychic  mysteries  right  in  the  midst  of  the 
phenomena  to  which  the  guesses  apply,  instead  of  putting 
them  before  all  the  phenomena  as  deductions  for  the  phe- 
nomena to  verify ;  or  after  them  all,  as  inductions  which  the 
phenomena  suggest.  The  inconsistency  has  been  partly  due 
to  the  matter  being  so  tangled  up  that  it  is  hard  to  discuss 
any  without  being  led  to  discuss  more,  but  partly  because  in 
such  uncertain  studies  it  is  well,  after  enough  facts  have  been 
given  to  justify  any  guesses,  to  make  the  guesses  as  aids  to  the 
mere  exposition  of  the  remaining  facts,  not  to  speak  of  their 
interpretation. 

We  will  now  go  on  to  the  partly  anticipated  phenomena. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

POSSESSION(T)  IN  GENERAL 

WE  now  come  to  the  phenomena  which  bring  the  question 
of  the  Cosmic  Inflow  closer  than  do  any  others,  and  which, 
of  all  the  field  we  are  exploring  (and  some  would  think  of 
all  human  annals),  are  probably  the  most  interesting  and  the 
most  puzzling.  They  are  perhaps  the  only  phenomena  whose 
claims  to  interpretation  by  the  spiritistic  hypothesis  are  ad- 
mitted by  the  weight  of  authority  to  be  worthy  of  con- 
sideration. 

Nearly  all  such  telepsychoses  as  have  been  recounted  here 
take  place  while  the  sensitive  is  in  possession  of  his  usual 
faculties,  and  are  described  or  expressed  by  the  medium  volun- 
tarily. But  there  are  telepsychoses  which  are  expressed  in- 
voluntarily and  unconsciously.  Between  these  two  classes  of 
expressions  there  is  of  course  (as  always  between  associated 
groups)  a  transition  group.  In  fact  conformably  with  the  in- 
structive gradualness  of  the  transitions  in  Nature  to  which  I 
have  alluded  so  often,  we  find  all  degrees  of  such  phenomena, 
from  the  simplest  telepathy  to  the  inspiration  which  leads 
almost  everybody  occasionally,  without  conscious  effort,  to 
"  surpass  himself  " ;  to  that  which  sets  "  the  poet's  eye  in  a 
fine  frenzy  rolling  " ;  to  that  which  sets  Mrs.  Verrall,  while 
otherwise  perfectly  conscious,  to  writing  intelligent  things 
she  does  not  intend;  to  that  which  sets  Stainton  Moses  and 
Mrs.  Piper  similarly  writing  while  their  intelligence  is  other- 
wise engaged — perhaps  in  studying  a  profound  treatise  or 
something  else  utterly  at  variance  with  the  written  topics;  to 
that  which  makes  Mrs.  Holland  occasionally  write  in  trance, 
and  Mrs.  Piper  and  Mrs.  Thompson  always ;  and  so  by  degrees 
to  the  apparently  complete  "  Possession,"  where  the  medium's 
soul  appears  to  abandon  the  body  and  leave  it  at  the  service  of 
the  hypothetical  souls  who  use  it  to  express  themselves. 

When  the  medium's  soul  is  thus  apparently  absent,  the 
vital  processes  still  continue:  they  are  carried  on  through 


330  Possession  (?)  in  General    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

the  sympathetic  nerve  and  its  jponnections ;  while  the  brain — 
with  all  thought,  feeling,  and  voluntary  movement — is  appar- 
ently abandoned  by  the  original  personality,  and  apparently 
open  to  use  of  other  personalities. 

These  individualities,  in  vocabulary,  inflection,  and,  some- 
times, gesture,  appear  as  boys  and  girls,  adults  and  old 
people,  men  and  women ;  Americans,  Indians,  English,  French, 
Hawaiians,  Chinese ;  schoolboys,  pedagogues,  scholars,  philoso- 
phers, prize-fighters,  butchers,  bakers,  and  candlestick-makers. 
All  talk  through  the  medium  with  a  dramatic  verisimilitude 
that,  while  perhaps  never  reaching  the  impressiveness  or 
humor  of  the  great  dramatists,  seems,  in  variety  and  faithful- 
ness to  nature, 'almost,  if  not  quite,  to  surpass  them  all. 

The  ways  of  accounting  for  these  strange  phenomena  we 
will  consider  incidentally  in  connection  with  the  phenomena 
themselves,  and  systematically  after  we  have  been  over  as 
full  accounts  of  them  as  space  permits. 

Many  students  believe  that  the  soi-disant  other  souls  are 
simply  dissociated  personalities  of  the  medium,  but  at  least 
for  purposes  of  study,  we  must  discriminate  Possession  from 
Dissociation,  and  yet  the  difference  between  them,  like  so 
many  differences  we  have  noted,  is  so  gradual  that  it  is  hard 
to  tell  where  one  ceases  and  the  other  begins.  Perhaps  the 
best  distinction  is  that  where  a  person  thinks  and  acts  unlike 
"  thonself,"  without  claiming  to  be  any  other  specific  person 
who  has  existed,  we  consider  the  new  personality  simply  dis- 
sociated— we  might  almost  say — differentiated  from  the  old. 
This  is  generally  the  result  of  accident  or  disease.  But  when 
the  new  personality  appears  without  any  occasion  from  acci- 
dent or  disease,  and  claims  to  be  somebody  that  has  existed  in 
another  body,  and  talks  and  acts,  and  especially  shows  excep- 
tional knowledge,  as  if  it  had  so  existed,  some  commentators 
say,  often  provisionally,  that  the  new  body  is  "  possessed  "  by 
the  soul  that  formerly  "  possessed  "  the  other  body. 

But  this  classification,  like  all  others,  is  defective :  for  there 
are  many  insane  persons  who  believe  themselves  to  be  some- 
body else — some  of  them  always,  some  only  occasionally. 
But  they  do  not  show  enough  of  the  foregoing  requirements 
to  fool  anybody,  and  have  not  noticeably  displayed  mediumistic 
phenomena. 


Ch.  XXIV]      Acted  Dreams.    Automatism  331 

On  reading  the  proofs,  I  see  that  it  will  probably  be  well, 
without  disturbing  the  preceding  two  paragraphs,  to  state  here, 
as  a  possible  clue  through  the  labyrinth  we  are  approaching, 
the  conclusion  I  have  reached  (tentatively:  that's  as  far  as 
it  is  yet  time  to  go)  that  the  phenomena  of  apparent  posses- 
sion result  from  the  medium's  identifying  "  thonself  "  with, 
and  so  acting  out,  characters  that  are  telepathically  presented 
in  dreams,  possibly  by  the  sitter,  possibly  by  other  incarnate 
intelligence,  possibly  by  postcarnate  intelligence,  possibly  by 
any  two  of  those  things,  or  by  all.  This  cryptic  utterance 
comes  from  so  many  considerations  that  to  make  it  clearer  by 
giving  them,  especially  with  their  illustrations,  would  be  vir- 
tually to  give  the  rest  of  the  book :  so  we  may  as  well  resume 
that  process. 

It  seems  a  corollary  from  the  law  of  evolution  that  there 
should  always  be  not  only  a  few  men  vastly  greater  than  the 
rest,  but  also  that  when  new  and  strange  faculties  appear,  they 
should  appear  only  in  a  few  people.  Dreams  we  all  have,  som- 
nambulism not  so  many  have,  and  hypnotism  and  trance  we 
have  long  known  occasionally ;  but  telepathy  and  "  medium- 
ship"  and  "possession,"  all  three  seem  to  be  comparatively 
rare  wonders  of  yesterday,  though  of  course  some  scholars 
think  they  have  found  evidence  of  them,  as  of  everything 
else,  in  remote  antiquity. 

We  shall  find  in  all  these  phenomena  many  traits  in  com- 
mon. Unfortunately,  it  seems  impossible  to  give  the  phe- 
nomena names  which  do  not  imply  opinions ;  and  this  while 
the  weight  of  judgment  appears  to  be  that  the  time  for 
opinions  is  not  yet  come.  A  prominent  alternate  name  for 
"  possession "  is  automatism,  and  Myers  has  so  established 
it  that  some  objections  to  it  seem  worth  considering. 

Inanimate  matter  is  generally  moved  by  the  immediate 
application  of  outside  force.  When  the  force  is  stored  up 
within  the  matter,  so  that  when  it  is  released  the  matter 
appears  to  be  self-moving,  the  motion  is  called  automatic. 
Myers  applies  the  term  to  all  superusual  experience  and 
function  in  the  broadest  sense,  covering  all  superusual  sensa- 
tion, waking  and  sleeping;  but  when  he  applied  the  term 
automatic  to  the  writing  and  speaking  and  gesticulating  of 


332  Possession  (?)  in  General    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

the  sensitives,  he  supported  the  thesis  that  those  acts  were 
not  performed  by  the  consciousnesses  of  the  mediums,  but 
by  consciousness  outside;  while  he  called  the  phenomena  auto- 
matic he  strove  with  all  his  strength  to  prove  them  hetero- 
matic,  and  produced  in  the  reader's  apprehension — mine,  at 
least — a  good  deal  of  wobbling. 

To  one  who  has  groped  much  among  these  uncertainties 
there  can  be  no  wonder  that  a  man  of  even  Myers's  ability 
sometimes  fell  into  an  inconsistency,  especially  as  he  naturally 
used  the  language  as  he  found  it.  And  yet  in  this  case  it 
seems  a  little  strange  that,  with  his  facility  in  coining  words, 
he  rested  content  with  the  old  one. 

His  definition  of  automatism  is  (Human  Personality,  I, 


"  The  products  of  inner  vision  or  inner  audition  externalized 
into  quasi-percepts, — these  form  what  I  term  sensory  autom- 
atisms. The  messages  conveyed  by  movements  of  limbs  or 
hand  or  tongue,  initiated  by  an  inner  motor  impulse  beyond 
the  conscious  will — these  are  what  I  term  motor  automatisms. 
And  I  claim  that  when  all  these  are  surveyed  together  their 
essential  analogy  will  be  recognized  beneath  much  diversity  of 
form.  They  will  be  seen  to  be  messages  from  the  subliminal 
to  the  supraliminal  self;  endeavors — conscious  or  unconscious 
— of  submerged  tracts  of  our  personality  to  present  to  ordinary 
waking  thought  fragments  of  a  knowledge  which  no  ordinary 
waking  thought  could  attain." 

Here  he  clearly  restricts  the  whole  business  to  the  indi- 
vidual soul :  no  sign  yet  of  his  attributing  any  of  it,  as  he 
does  later,  to  other  intelligences  acting  through  the  organism 
instead  of  its  usual  soul. 

But  he  goes  on  (p.  223)  to  say  that: 

"All  human  terrene  faculty  will  be  in  this  view  simply  a 
selection  from  faculty  existing  in  the  metetherial  world;  such 
part  of  that  antecedent,  even  if  not  individualized,  faculty  as 
may  be  expressible  through  each  several  human  organism." 

"  Faculty  existing  in  the  metetherial  world  "  seems  a  pretty 
good  expression  for  Cosmic  Soul. 

Furthermore,  on  page  218,  under  Hypnotism,  he  had  said : 

"  There  may  be  a  truth — deeper  than  we  can  at  this  moment 
stay  to  discuss — in  many  subjective  experiences  of  poets,  philo- 


Ch.  XXIV]    Myers  on  the  Metetherial  World  333 

sophers,  mystics,  saints.  And  if  their  sense  of  inflowing  and 
indwelling  life  indeed  be  true; — if  the  subliminal  uprushes 
which  renew  and  illumine  them  are  fed  in  reality  from  some 
metetherial  environment; — then  a  similar  influence  may  by 
analogy  exist  and  be  recognizable  along  the  whole  gamut  of 

psychophysical  phenomena 

"  The  nascent  life  of  each  of  us  is  perhaps  a  fresh  draft, — 
the  continued  life  is  an  ever-varying  draft, — upon  the  cosmic 
energy.  In  that  environing  energy — call  it  by  what  name  we 
will — we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being;  and  it  may  well 
be  that  certain  dispositions  of  mind,  certain  phases  of  person- 
ality, may  draw  in  for  the  moment  from  that  energy  a  fuller 
vitalizing  stream." 

He  closes  the  chapter  with: 

"  Let  men  realize  that . . .  their  own  spirits  are  co-operative 
elements  in  the  cosmic  evolution,  are  part  and  parcel  of  the 
ultimate  vitalizing  Power." 

Myers  wrote  these  passages  in  speculation  on  the  source 
of  the  curative  power  of  hypnotism,  and  they  seem  to  in- 
dicate the  conviction  I  have  already  expressed  that  hyp- 
notism opens  the  soul  to  influxes  from  a  cosmic  reservoir  of 
knowledge  and  will,  just  as  other  agencies  open  the  blood 
and  nerves  to  influxes  from  the  cosmic  store  of  matter  and 
force.  This  is  a  broader  view  than  the  exclusively  individual 
one  of  the  subliminal  self.  Though  not  without  vagueness  and 
paradox,  it  certainly  seems  pointed  to  by  the  facts;  it  offers 
an  explanation  where  "  subliminal  self  "  is  but  a  name ;  and 
is  at  least  implied,  even  when  tenninologically  ignored,  by 
almost  every  writer  on  the  subject.  Our  supraliminal  souls 
are  individual,  but  they  blend  more  or  less  with  our  subliminal 
souls,  which,  as  I  fear  I  am  wearying  you  by  contending, 
seem  to  be  such  inflows  from  a  cosmic  soul  as  our  individual 
make-ups  permit. 

We  cannot  draw  a  definite  line  between  the  supraliminal 
and  the  subliminal,  any  more  than  we  can  between  any  other 
related  categories,  and  we  are  hardly  to  be  charged  with 
inconsistency  if,  in  treating  of  one  aspect  of  soul,  we  omit, 
or  fail,  to  keep  the  other  aspects  equally  in  front.  But  does 
it  not  seem  probable  that  we  will  be  on  a  more  helpful  way 
to  the  truth  if,  in  treating  the  subliminal  aspect,  we  keep  as 
far  as  we  can  from  confining  it  to  the  personal  character- 


334  Possession(?)  in  General    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

istics,  and  keep  prominent,  as  far  as  we  can,  the  cosmic 
characteristics?  True  it  seems  to  be  that  strictly  personal 
characteristics  determine  the  inflow  of  the  cosmic  element, 
but  as  we  look  out  through  the  channels  open  in  the  per- 
sonality, we  catch  glimpses  of  that  to  which  we  can  see  no 
limit  in  content  or  time,  and  to  which  we  give  the  names  that 
only  express  our  incapacity — infinite  and  eternal. 

But  although  Myers  so  clearly  went  for  his  automatism 
outside  of  the  purposeful  individual,  and  into  a  cosmic  in- 
flow, later,  as  we  shall  have  abundant  occasion  to  see,  he 
absolutely  leaves  the  cosmic  inflow,  and  yet  does  not  return 
to  the  subliminal  individual  soul  of  his  "  automatist,"  but 
attributes  the  "messages"  to  individual  souls  which  have 
left  the  body,  and  this  he  does  without  any  insistent  recur- 
rence to  his  implied  suggestion  that  both  are  different  aspects 
of  the  same  thing — the  individual  souls  as  parts  of  the  cosmic 
soul. 

This  all  seems  very  inconsistent,  and  it  is  very  inconsistent 
unless  the  postcarnate  souls  and  the  automatist's  soul  are  all 
regarded  as  parts  of  the  cosmic  soul.  But  for  "  subliminal 
self  "  substitute  "  cosmic  soul,"  or,  more  definitely,  "  cosmic 
inflow,"  and  we  have  a  hypothesis  consistent  with  itself  so 
far  as  one  in  these  vague  regions  can  be. 

But  I  don't  recall  Myers  ever  being  consistent  enough  to 
perform  that  very  simple  feat  of  substitution;  and  it  was 
avoided  with  what  seemed  to  me  almost  fatuous  care  by  Du 
Prel,  an  immediate  forerunner  in  Fechner's  doctrine  of  the 
subliminal  self,  who,  for  all  I  know,  may  have  invented  the 
name.  Du  Prel's  motive,  however,  was  plain  enough:  he 
wrote  in  the  days  of  the  reaction  against  the  old  theologies, 
begun  by  Darwin,  Spencer,  Huxley,  and  their  fellow-laborers 
on  the  Continent,  and  carried  out  on  the  Continent  to  such 
extremes  that  Du  Prel  and  many  others  would  account  for 
a  thing  on  any  hypothesis,  no  matter  how  extravagant,  rather 
than  on  one  involving  an  intelligent  cause  and  regulator  be- 
hind the  phenomenal  universe :  apparently  for  fear  that  some- 
body might  call  it  God.  Man's  was  the  highest  intelligence 
for  which  they  would  see  any  evidence,  and  they  gave  him  a 
"  subliminal  self "  to  account  for  any  manifestations  in  or 
through  him  which,  a  generation  earlier,  would  have  been 


Ch.  XXIV]    The  Hypothesis  of  the  Subliminal  335 

called  superhuman,  and  seem  so  to  some  of  us  in  this  genera- 
tion. 

Du  Prel  was  specially  put  to  it  to  account  for  the  per- 
sonalities that  oppose  the  self  in  dreams,  and  he  fished 
them  out  of  his  universal  reservoir — "  the  subliminal."  If 
in  a  dream  or  trance  an  individuality  leads  you  along  some 
ridgepole  you  never  could  have  traversed  alone,  or  solves  some 
problem  beyond  your  powers,  or  even  opposes  you  with  some 
knock-down  argument  you  never  thought  of,  that  other  per- 
sonality is  simply  your  "  divided  self  " — according  to  Du  Prel 
and  his  company;  but  according  to  some  simpler  souls,  in- 
cluding mine,  that  other  individuality  is  more  nearly  what 
it  appears  to  be — an  independent  inflow  of  the  cosmic  soul 
into  you.  The  modus  operandi  I  don't  attempt  to  explain, 
but  I'd  rather  attempt  that  than  Du  Prel's  and  Myers's  job 
of  explaining  the  second  personality  as  a  divided  part  of  the 
first. 

Myers  hung  on  to  the  hypothesis  and  the  name  for  it,  and 
this  he  did  after  he  had  accepted  the  human  personality's 
survival  of  bodily  death,  and  the  cosmic  soul;  and  he  did  so 
much  to  popularize  the  individual  subliminal  hypothesis  in 
the  English-speaking  world,  that  he  seemed  to  feel  for  it  the 
affection  sometimes  felt  for  an  adopted  child.  If  he  had 
risen  so  far  beyond  his  partiality  for  his  bantling  just  as  it 
was,  as  to  persistently  identify  it  with  the  cosmic  inflow,  he 
would,  if  I  mistake  not,  have  avoided  many  inconsistencies 
and  have  added  materially  to  the  unity  of  his  work.  Of 
course  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge  this  proposed 
shape  of  the  hypothesis  would  probably  have  run  him  into 
other  inconsistencies,  as  I  am  perfectly  conscious  that  it  is 
running  me ;  but  I  think  it  would  still  have  left  the  balance 
to  the  good,  and  have  brought  us  a  step  nearer  to  correlating 
the  phenomena  with  established  knowledge. 

But  in  every  one  of  the  steps  Myers  certainly  did  go  out- 
side of  the  sensitive  for  his  motive  power.  The  operations 
of  the  medium's  brain,  or  hand,  or  tongue,  or  other  members, 
are  apparently  caused  by  an  agency  other  than  the  conscious- 
ness which  we  ordinarily  recognize  as  the  specific  human 
being.  That  agency  may  be  what  is  called  the  subliminal 
consciousness,  but  the  chief  English-speaking  apostle  of  the 


336  Possession  (?)  in  General    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

term,  while  he  says  it  is  that,  defines  that  into  something 
more.  The  agency  may  be  some  sort  of  a  halfway  cosmic 
soul,  as  one  individuality  amusing  itself  by  aping  other  in- 
dividualities (not  a  very  likely  hypothesis) ;  or  it  may  be  a 
really  cosmic  soul  acting  in  a  genuine  capacity  not  yet  clearly 
comprehensible — differentiating  itself  into  each  individual — 
thus  becoming  originator  and  sustainer  of  individual  souls, 
and,  in  some  as  yet  mysterious  way,  identical  with  them. 
Things  seem  to  point  this  way,  and  Myers,  apparently  in 
spite  of  himself,  involuntarily  kept  admitting  that  they  did. 
I  do  not  say  that  he  was  not  justified  in  doing  so,  and 
that  the  phenomena  are  really  heteromatic,  but  if,  like  Myers, 
I  were  fully  confirmed  in  a  belief  in  spiritism,  I  should  say 
so.  Myers's  inconsistency  in  using  the  word  automatic  when 
he  means  heteromatic  probably  is  due  to  his  trying  to  ride  two, 
or  rather  three,  horses.  If  all  the  phenomena  are  due  to  his 
pet  subliminal  soul,  and  that  is  all  shut  up  in  the  medium, 
the  proceedings  are  of  course  automatic.  But  once  admit 
telepathy,  even  from  the  sitter,  not  to  speak  of  teloteropathy 
from  remote  incarnate  intelligences,  and  much  less  from  dis- 
carnate  ones,  and  your  automatism  is  gone.  As  the  writings 
profess  to  be  heteromatic,  and  as  the  theory  of  the  cosmic 
inflow,  which  I  tentatively  accept,  would  make  them  heter- 
omatic, I  shall  call  them  heteromatic. 

Between  the  holders  of  the  hypothesis  of  the  subliminal 
self  there  is  confusion  and  controversy.  The  spiritistic  side, 
led  perhaps  by  Myers  and  adhered  to  by  Hodgson,  Lodge,  and 
others,  claims  that  the  medium's  subliminal  soul  is  a  distinct 
thing,  and  that  there  are  other  things  equally  distinct  appear- 
ing as  the  souls  of  the  "  possessors "  of  the  medium,  all  of 
which  souls,  they  incidentally  admit,  may  be  inflows  from 
the  cosmic  soul. 

The  anti-spiritistic  side,  led  perhaps  by  Podmore,  admits 
the  subliminal  soul,  but  as  to  the  possessions  being  manifesta- 
tions of  other  souls,  they  are  no  such  things,  but  mere  processes 
of  the  medium's  subliminal  soul — largely  telepathic  reflec- 
tions from  other  incarnate  souls.  The  dramatic  quality  of 
these  reflections,  initiative,  comment,  repartee,  discussion, 
disagreement,  even  violent  argument,  expressions  of  satisfac- 


Ch.  XXIV]        Perhaps  all  Sides  Correct  337 

tion  and  dissatisfaction  ranging  all  the  way  from  joy  to  a 
rage  that  smashes  things — all  this  is  left  unaccounted 
for. 

There  is  a  third  group  in  the  controversy,  led  perhaps  by 
James,  which  goes  very  little  farther  than  to  say:  it  is  not 
yet  time  for  an  opinion. 

And  there  is  at  least  a  fourth  position,  though  I  hardly 
see  signs  of  its  being  occupied  by  a  "group,"  which  would 
claim  that  there  seem  some  glimmerings  of  everybody  being 
right  (as  in  most  controversies)  in  the  direction  of  the 
hypothesis,  as  yet  very  vague  and  paradoxical,  that  although 
the  individual  soul  is  contained  within  the  pretty  definite 
limits  of  its  individuality,  yet  within  those  limits,  it  is  a 
portion — a  sort  of  bay  if  you  please,  of  the  cosmic  soul,  and 
is  subject  to  occasional  influxes  or  tides  from  the  cosmic 
soul  in  the  shape  of  all  sorts  of  inspirations  (which  turns  the 
fluid  metaphor  of  a  tide  into  a  gaseous  one),  not  only  those 
of  music,  poetry,  hypothesis,  eloquence,  etc.,  but  of  all  sorts 
of  dreams  and  visions,  normal  or  hypnotic,  and  "  possessions  " 
of  all  degrees,  from  heteromatic  writing  up  to  entire  apparent 
substitution  or  at  least  predominance  of  a  soul  that,  like  the 
minor  inspirations  or  possessions,  has  drifted  in  from  the 
cosmic  aggregate. 

In  writing  this  hypothesis  I  have  been  trammeled  by  the 
inevitable  behindhandedness  of  words  in  such  connections, 
and  the  most  abstract  words  being,  as  we  all  know,  metaphors 
from  material  things.  I  am  very  conscious,  too,  that  the 
statement  contains  a  luxuriant  abundance  of  things  already 
said  by  others  as  well  as  myself,  and  I  again  crave  your 
patience  for  my  repetitions.  The  conceptions  are  necessarily 
too  vague  for  definite  statement  once  for  all,  and  whether  they 
are  anything  more  than  mirages,  and  even  if  they  are  only 
mirages,  what  they  are  can  best  be  determined  by  approach- 
ing them  through  all  the  avenues  that  may  be  found  open. 

Whether  the  "  possession  "  is  only  apparent,  or  is  partial, 
or  is  complete,  or  is  one  at  one  time  and  the  others  at  other 
times,  is  an  open  question.  Apparently  all  three  may  occur 
in  the  same  sitting. 

There  is  undoubtedly  another  soul  than  the  medium's  in- 


338  Possesswn(f)  in  General    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

volved,  but  the  method  of  its  action  upon  him,  perhaps  we 
shall  find,  does  not  go  so  far  as  substitution  for  his  soul. 

Mrs.  Sidgwick  very  fully  and  ably  argues  this  view  in 
Pr.  XV,  but  she  pays  so  little  attention  to  the  dramatic 
elements  in  the  sittings — attributing  them  almost  exclusively 
to  telepathy,  even  if  from  postcarnate  spirits,  that  the  argu- 
ment leaves  my  opinion  in  suspense,  except  so  far  as  my 
fumbling  feeling  about  the  Cosmic  Soul  sometimes  seems 
to  render  both  telepathy  and  possession  names  for  something 
bigger. 

Of  course  there  may  have  been  what  we  provisionally  call 
possession  in  many  of  the  phenomena  already  given,  especially 
those  under  telepathy;  but  the  indications  of  it  are  much 
stronger  in  the  set  which  we  now  approach — heteromatic 
writing  and  dramatic  impersonation.  The  ancients  also  asso- 
ciated the  idea  with  dreams  and  the  like,  and  we  may  yet 
be  brought  back  to  a  somewhat  similar  impression.  I,  for 
one,  have  reached  it  already. 


CHAPTER  XXV 
POSSESSION  (?)  IN  HETEROMATIC  WRITING 

ON  revising  this  chapter,  I  find  it  among  the  most  unsatis- 
factory in  the  book,  and  my  own  work  in  it  among  its  most 
unsatisfactory  parts.  Yet  its  relation  to  some  of  the  least 
unsatisfactory  of  later  chapters,  leads  me  to  advise  you,  if 
your  patience  is  not  yet  exhausted,  at  least  to  skim  through  it. 

Ever  since  there  was  writing,  of  course  there  has  been 
writing  more  or  less  "  inspired." 

The  capacity  for  it,  as  Dr.  Crookes  declares  of  the  capacity 
for  telekinesis,  seems  to  exist  in  some  degree  in  everybody. 
James  says  (Memories  and  Studies,  pp.  199-200)  : 

"  I  have  come  to  see  in  automatic  writing  one  example  of  a 
department  of  human  activity  as  vast  as  it  is  enigmatic.  Every 
sort  of  person  is  liable  to  it,  or  to  something  equivalent  to  it; 
. . .  our  subconscious  region  seems,  as  a  rule,  to  be  dominated 
either  by  a  crazy  '  will  to  make-believe/  or  by  some  curious  ex- 
ternal force  impelling  us  to  personation.  The  first  difference 
between  the  psychical  researcher  and  the  inexpert  person  is  that 
the  former  realizes  the  commonness  and  typicality  of  the  phe- 
nomenon here,  while  the  latter,  less  informed,  thinks  it  so  rare 
as  to  be  unworthy  of  attention.  /  wish  to  go  on  record  for  the 
commonness. 

"  The  next  thing  I  wish  to  go  on  record  for  is  the  presence, 
in  the  midst  of  all  the  humbug,  of  really  supernormal  know- 
ledge  " 

Mahomet  professed  that  the  Koran  was  entirely  hetero- 
matic  from  the  Angel  Gabriel. 

Swedenborg  was  devoted  mainly  to  science,  and  with  great 
success,  until  1745,  when  he  claimed  that  God  appeared  to 
him  and  said :  "  I  have  chosen  thee  to  unfold  the  spiritual 
sense  of  the  Holy  Scripture.  I  will  myself  dictate  to  thee 
what  thou  shalt  write  " ;  and  surely  from  even  the  very  un- 
sympathetic point  of  view  which  I  myself  share,  the  writing 
was  a  very  extraordinary  performance. 
339 


340    Possession(  ?)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

Blake,  time  and  again,  disclaimed  voluntary  authorship  of 
his  writings. 

Accounts  of  several  other  heteromatic  writers  are  given  in 
Miss  Underbill's  Mysticism  and  Psychology,  pp.  78-80 : 

"  Madame  Guyon  states  in  her  autobiography,  that  when  she 
was  composing  her  works  she  would  experience  a  sudden  and 
irresistible  inclination  to  take  up  her  pen ;  though  feeling  wholly 
incapable  of  literary  composition,  and  not  even  knowing  the 
subject  on  which  she  would  be  impelled  to  write.  If  she  resisted 
this  impulse  it  was  at  the  cost  of  the  most  intense  discomfort. 
She  would  then  begin  to  write  with  extraordinary  swiftness; 
words,  elaborate  arguments,  and  appropriate  quotations  coming 
to  her  without  reflection,  and  so  quickly  that  one  of  her  longest 
books  was  written  in  one  and  a  half  days. 

" '  In  writing  I  saw  that  I  was  writing  of  things  which  I  had 
never  seen:  and  during  the  time  of  this  manifestation,  I  was 
given  light  to  perceive  that  I  had  in  me  treasures  of  knowledge 
and  understanding  which  I  did  not  know  that  I  possessed.' 

"  Similar  statements  are  made  of  St.  Teresa,  who  declared  that 
in  writing  her  books  she  was  powerless  to  set  down  anything  but 
that  which  her  Master  put  into  her  mind.  So  Blake  said  of 
'  Milton  '  and  '  Jerusalem,'  '  I  have  written  the  poems  from  im- 
mediate dictation,  twelve  or  sometimes  twenty  or  thirty  lines 
at  a  time,  without  premeditation  and  even  against  my  will.  The 
time  it  has  taken  in  writing  was  thus  rendered  non-existent,  and 
an  immense  poem  exists  which  seems  to  be  the  labor  of  a  long 
life,  all  produced  without  labor  or  study.' 

"  There  are,  of  course,  extreme  forms  of  that  strange  power 
of  automatic  composition,  in  which  words  and  characters  arrive 
and  arrange  themselves  in  defiance  of  their  authors'  will,  of 
which  most  poets  and  novelists  possess  a  trace " 

As  already  indicated,  apparent  possession  to  the  extent  of 
heteromatic  writing  was  manifested  in  America  by,  among 
others,  Tuttle,  Davis,  and  Colville.  Foster  never  did  it  to 
any  extent. 

Here  is  a  case  from  Stillman,  through  a  friend  whom  he 
calls  Miss  A.  (op.  cit.,  1, 190-1)  : 

"  After  having  been  for  some  time  troubled  by  the  rappings 
she  began  to  feel  involuntary  motions  in  her  right  hand  which 
increased  to  constantly  recurring  violent  exercise  of  the  muscles, 
when  it  occurred  to  her  from  the  character  of  the  motions  that 
the  hand  wanted  a  pencil  to  write  and  she  laid  paper  and  a 
pencil  on  the  table.  Her  hand  then  took  possession  of  the 
pencil  and  began  to  scrawl  aimlessly  over  the  paper  until,  after 
the  interval  of  many  days,  the  agency  seemed  to  have  sufficient 


Ch.  XXV]    Stillman's  Miss  A.    Stainton  Moses  341 

control  over  the  muscles  to  form  legible  letters The  hand 

wrote  legibly  and  neatly  in  reply  to  mental,  i.e.,  unspoken  ques- 
tions, she  having  no  control  of  the  muscles  so  long  as  the 
'  influence ' . . .  chose  to  use  it.  She  knew  what  was  written  only 
when  the  writing  was  finished  and  she  read  it,  as  we  did;  and 
the  writing  was . . .  quite  as  regular  and  well  formed  when  her 

eyes  were  bandaged As  a  further  test  of  the  involuntary 

character  of  this  we ...  tried  her  with . . .  my  brother  talk- 
ing with  her  from  one  side  of  the  table,  while  she  was  writing 

in  reply  to  my  mental  questions  on  the  other. 

" Under  these  circumstances  she  wrote  for  us  the  re- 
plies in  conversations  with  what  purported  to  be  the  spirits 
of  three  deceased  relatives . . .  and  the  handwriting  of  the . . . 
series  of  communications  was  a  better  imitation  of  their  writing 
than  I,  knowing  it,  could  have  produced.  That  of  my  sister- 
in-law  . . .  my  brother  recognized ...  as  that  of  his  wife,  but 
that  of  our  brother  was  a  perfect  reproduction  down  to  the 
smallest  accidents,  and  that  which  was  given  as  the  responses 
of  my  cousin  equally  so,  and  executed  with  a  rapidity  of  which 
I  was  incapable — a  large  scrawling  hand,  that  of  our  brother 
being  of  a  character  entirely  opposed,  slowly  and  laboriously 
formed,  with  occasional  omissions  of  the  last  line  of  a  final  n 
quite  common  in  his  writing.  The  girl  had  never  known  either 
of  these  relatives." 

Stainton  Moses  was  about  the  earliest  of  the  heteromatic 
writers  who  have  come  under  modern  scientific  criticism. 
The  writing  began  in  1873,  nine  years  before  the  foundation 
of  the  S.  P.  R.,  so,  though  none  of  it  is  given  before  Vol.  VIII, 
chronologically  it  properly  comes  before  that  from  others 
given  in  earlier  volumes. 

In  addition  to  the  diary-like  account  of  his  seances,  upon 
which  we  have  already  drawn,  he  left  twenty-four  note- 
books of  automatic  writing,  which  are  treated  by  Myers  in 
Pr.  VIII,  IX,  XI.  He  says  (Pr.  XI,  64) : 

"  These  automatic  messages  were  almost  wholly  written  .by 
Mr.  Moses's  own  hand  while  he  was  in  a  normal  waking  state. 
The  exceptions  are  of  two  kinds.  (1)  There  is  one  long  pas- 
sage . . .  alleged  by  Mr.  Moses  to  have  been  written  by  himself 
while  in  a  state  of  trance.  (2)  There  are,  here  and  there,  a  few 
words  alleged  to  be  in  '  direct  writing ' ; — written,  that  is  to  say, 
by  invisible  hands,  but  in  Mr.  Moses's  presence 

"  Putting  these  exceptional  instances  aside,  we  find  that  the 
writings  generally  take  the  form  of  a  dialogue,  Mr.  Moses 
proposing  a  question  in  his  ordinary  thick,  black  handwriting. 
An  answer  is  then  generally,  though  not  always,  given;  written 


342    Possession  (?)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

also  by  Mr.  Moses,  and  with  the  same  pen,  but  in  some  one 
of  various  scripts  which  differ  more  or  less  widely  from  his 
own." 

And  elsewhere  (Pr.  IX,  257-8) : 

"  As  a  general  rule  the  same  alleged  spirits  both  manifested 
themselves  by  raps,  &c.,  at  Mr.  Moses's  sittings  with  his  friends, 
and  also  wrote  through  his  hand  when  he  was  alone.  In  this, 
as  in  other  respects,  Mr.  Moses's  two  series  of  sittings — when 
alone  and  in  company — were  concordant,  and,  so  to  say,  com- 
plementary;— explanations  being  given  by  the  writing  of  what 
had  happened  at  the  seances.  When  '  direct  writing '  was  given 
at  the  seances,  the  handwriting  of  each  alleged  spirit  was  the 
same  as  that  which  the  same  spirit  was  in  the  habit  of  em- 
ploying in  the  automatic  script.  The  claim  to  individuality 
was  thus  in  all  cases  decisively  made.  [And  on  p.  334.] 
Each  series  presupposes  and  refers  to  the  other.  The  trance- 
addresses  given  at  the  seances  are  continued  by  the  messages 
written  in  privacy.  The  phenomena  of  the  seances  are  pre- 
dicted in  the  automatic  script  [This  suggests  that  Moses's 
agency,  involuntary  perhaps,  may  have  been  behind  both. 
H.H.]  and  similar  phenomena  sometimes  occur  to  Mr.  Moses 
when  alone." 

(Page  255.)  "  The  '  controls '  themselves  are  of  various 
types;  and  there  is  one  rare  'control'  (' Magus ')...  whose 
utterances  seem  to  me  shifty  and  exaggerated,  in  a  way  very 
common  in  automatic  script,  and  who  does  apparently  endorse 
a  complete  impostor.  The  utterances  of  other  'controls'  for 
the  most  part  reflect  Mr.  Moses's  own  opinions  on  other 
mediums,  or  are  sometimes  more  severe.  [Page  257.]  [There 
are]  spirits  who  give  such  names  as  Rector,  Doctor,  Theo- 
philus,  and,  above  all,  Imperator. . . .  The  names  which  they 
assert  to  have  been  theirs  in  earth-life . . .  are  for  the  most 
part  both  more  illustrious  and  more  remote. . . .  Mr.  Moses 
himself . . .  justly  felt  that  the  assumption  of  great  names  is 
likely  to  diminish  rather  than  to  increase  the  weight  of  the 
communication For  a  long  while  one  of  his  main  stumbling- 
blocks  lay  in  these  lofty  and  unprovable  claims.  Ultimately 
he  came  to  believe  even  in  these  identities,  on  the  general 
ground  that  teachers  who  had  given  him  so  many  proofs,  both 
of  their  power  and  of  their  serious  interest  in  his  welfare,  were 
not  likely  to  have  deceived  him  on  such  a  point.  But  he  did 
not  count  upon  a  similar  belief  in  others,  and  he  expressly 
wished  to  avoid  seeming  to  claim  special  authority  for  the 
teachings  on  the  ground  of  their  alleged  authorship " 

We  shall  find  later  that  after  Moses's  death  his  alleged 
spirit  gave  an  entirely  different  set  of  names  for  the  earthly 
originals  of  these  alleged  personalities. 


Ch.  XXV]  Moses'  Writing  Controls  343 

Moses  says  (Pr.  XI,  65-7) : 

" I  soon  found  that  writing  flowed  more  easily  when 

I  used  a  book  that  was  permeated  with  the  psychic  aura;  just 
as  raps  come  more  easily  on  a  table  that  has  been  frequently 
used  for  the  purpose,  and  as  phenomena  occur  most  readily  in 
the  medium's  own  room." 

One  argument  for  this  point  of  view  could  be  found  in  the 
well-known  effect  upon  violins  of  much  playing.  But  Mr. 
Bartlett  tells  me  that  Foster  had  no  experience  parallel  to 
that  of  Moses  in  this  regard.  Moses  continues : 

" At  first  the  writing  was  very  small  and  irregular, 

and  it  was  necessary  for  me  to  write  slowly  and  cau- 
tiously, and  to  watch  the  hand,  following  the  lines  with  my 
eye;  otherwise  the  message  soon  became  incoherent,  and  the 
result  was  mere  scribble.  In  a  short  time,  however,  I  found 
that  I  could  dispense  with  these  precautions.  The  writing, 
while  becoming  more  and  more  minute,  became  at  the  same 
time  very  regular  and  beautifully  formed.  As  a  specimen  of 
caligraphy  some  of  the  pages  are  exceedingly  beautiful.  The 
answers  to  my  questions  (written  at  the  top  of  the  page)  were 
paragraphed  and  arranged  as  if  for  the  press,  and  the  name  of 
God  was  always  written  in  capitals,  and  slowly,  and,  as  it 
seemed,  reverentially.  The  subject-matter  was  always  of  a  pure 
and  elevated  character. . . .  Throughout  the  whole  of  these  writ- 
ten communications,  extending  in  unbroken  continuity  to  the 
year  1880  [From  1873.  H.H.],  there  is  no  flippant  message, 
no  attempt  at  jest,  no  vulgarity  or  incongruity,  no  false  or 
misleading  statement 

"  The  earliest  communications  were  all  written  in  the  minute 
characters  that  I  have  described,  and  were  uniform  in  style 
and  in  the  signature,  '  Doctor,  the  Teacher.' . . .  Whenever  and 
wherever  he  wrote,  his  handwriting  was  unchanged,  showing, 
indeed,  less  change  than  my  own  does  during  the  last  decade. 
The  tricks  of  style  remained  the  same,  and  there  was  in  short 
a  sustained  individuality  throughout  his  messages.  He  is  to 
me  an  entity,  a  personality,  a  being  with  his  own  idiosyncrasies 
and  characteristics  quite  as  clearly  defined  as  the  human  beings 
with  whom  I  come  in  contact 

"  After  a  time,  communications  came  from  other  sources, 
and  these  were  distinguished  each  by  its  own  handwriting,  and 

by  its  own  peculiarities  of  style  and  expression 1  could  tell 

at  once  who  was  writing  by  the  mere  characteristics  of  the 
caligraphy." 

Myers,  having  seen  all  the  heteromatic  writing,  tacitly 
endorses  Moses's  statements  regarding  its  visible  qualities. 


344    Possession?  ?)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

"By  degrees  I  found  that  many  spirits  who  were  unable  to 
influence  my  hand  themselves  sought  the  aid  of  a  spirit 
'Rector'  [a  gentleman  whom  we  shall  meet  often.  H.H.], 
who  was  apparently  able  to  write  more  freely  and  with  less 
strain  on  me;  for  writing  by  a  spirit  unaccustomed  to  the 
work  was  often  incoherent,  and  always  resulted  in  a  serious 
drain  upon  my  vital  powers.  They  did  not  know  how  easily 
the  reserve  of  force  was  exhausted,  and  I  suffered  proportion- 
ately." 

Apparently  in  Moses's  case  it  taxed  some  source  of  physical 
energy  which  ordinary  writing  does  not;  and  yet  there  are 
several  automatic  writers  who  give  no  indication  of  tax.  Even 
Mrs.  Piper,  with  the  arduous  phenomena  attending  her 
trances,  can  hardly  be  said  to  "  suffer,"  unless  the  trance  is 
unduly  prolonged. 

Moses  continues  (Pr.  XI,  67) : 

"I  had,  obviously,  no  right  to  print  that  which  concerned 
others.  Some  of  the  most  striking  and  impressive  communica- 
tions have  thus  been  excluded " 

This  is  one  of  the  great  disadvantages  regarding  the  veri- 
fication of  all  alleged  communications  through  mediums:  the 
most  evidential  are  those  too  personal  to  print. 

Moses  goes  on: 

"  At  first . . .  even  . . .  the  thoughts  were  not  my  thoughts. 
Very  soon  the  messages  assumed  a  character  of  which  I  had 
no  doubt  whatever  the  thought  was  opposed  to  my  own.  [We 
have  met  and  shall  meet  more  of  this — enough  to  have  seriously 
disturbed  my  original  conviction  that  the  phenomena  are  prin- 
cipally due  to  the  sitter — or  writer.  H.H.]  But  I  cultivated 
the  power  of  occupying  my  mind  with  other  things  during  the 
time  that  the  writing  was  going  on,  and  was  able  to  read  an 
abstruse  book,  and  follow  out  a  line  of  close  reasoning  while 
the  message  was  written  with  unbroken  regularity.  Messages 
so  written  extended  over  many  pages,  and  in  their  course  there 
is  no  correction,  no  fault  in  composition,  and  often  a  sustained 
vigor  and  beauty  of  style. 

" In  several  cases,  information  of  which  I  was  assuredly 

ignorant,  clear,  precise,  and  definite  in  form,  susceptible  of 
verification,  and  always  exact,  was  thus  conveyed  to  me. 
[Such  cases  abound  with  nearly  all  the  honest  mediums.  H.H.] 
I  never  could  command  the  writing.  It  came  unsought  usu- 
ally, and  when  I  did  seek  it,  as  often  as  not  I  was  unable  to 
obtain  it.  [This,  too,  is  quite  usual.  H.H.]  The  particular 


Ch.  XXV]       Imperator's  Teaching  of  Moses  345 

communications  which  I  received  from  the  spirit  known  to  me 

as  Imperator  mark  a  distinct  epoch  in  my  life 1  underwent 

a  spiritual  development  that  was  in  its  outcome  a  very  re- 
generation  For  me  the  question  of  the  beneficent  action  of 

external  spirit  on  my  own  self  was  then  finally  settled.  I  have 
never  since,  even  in  the  vagaries  of  an  extremely  skeptical 
mind,  and  amid  much  cause  for  questioning,  ever  seriously 
entertained  a  doubt." 

Myers  comments  (Pr.  XI,  69) : 

"  The  tone  of  the  spirits  towards  Mr.  Moses  himself  is 
habitually  courteous  and  respectful.  But  occasionally  they 
have  some  criticism  which  pierces  to  the  quick,  and  which  goes 
far  to  explain  to  me  Mr.  Moses's  unwillingness  to  have  the 
books  fully  inspected  during  his  lifetime. . . .  The  reader  will 
generally  find  the  evidence  for  identity  much  more  satisfactory 
in  the  case  of  spirits  recently  departed,  and  more  or  less  on 
the  medium's  own  level,  than  in  the  case  of  spirits  more  exalted 
and  remote." 

Which  might  be  translated  into  ordinary  language  to  the 
effect  that  time  usually  dims  recollections  and  interests, 
wherever  they  exist.  It  might  even  hold  if  a  "  spirit "  is 
nothing  more  than  an  echo  of  a  medium ;  but  that  it  is  more 
than  that,  whatever  else  it  may  be,  the  evidence  strongly 
indicates.  But  the  fading  of  memories  apparently  is  true  only 
of  the  everyday  consciousness  upon  which  new  events  crowd 
the  old — the  supraliminal.  From  the  subliminal  (or  the 
Cosmic  Soul?)  the  remotest  experiences  are  constantly  pop- 
ping up  in  pristine  freshness :  time  seems  to  make  no  differ- 
ence whatever.  Imperator  seems  to  have  impressed  himself 
more  than  any  other  "  spirit,"  and  he  professed  to  date  a 
long  time  back.  Yet  this  does  not  traverse  Myers's  "  eviden- 
tial "  point. 

Myers  farther  comments  on  Imperator  (p.  107) : 

"  The  teaching  which  he  offers  as  the  highest  boon,  and 
which  Mr.  Moses  accepts  as  such,  is  by  no  means  so  novel  or 
so  illuminating  as  is  sometimes  implied.  But  this  is  only  to 
say  that  Imperator  is  not  our  appointed  guide;  that  it  is  not  we 
who  are  directly  reached  by  his  exhortation  or  argument.  His 
utterances,  like  other  human  utterances,  fall  short  of  the  uni- 
versality, the  permanence,  which  their  author  would  fain 
give  them.  But  in  regard  to  their  primary  end,  the  develop- 
ment of  Mr.  Moses's  own  soul,  I  know  not  if  words  of  more 


346    Possession  (?)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

weight  could  have  been  spoken,  or  that  sturdy  and  downright 
spirit  led  onwards  by  any  surer  way." 

After  a  good  deal  of  reading  and  pondering,  I  find  the  pro- 
portion of  Moses's  self  in  all  these  proceedings  looming  in  my 
apprehension  larger  and  larger.  The  benefits  he  got  from 
them  look  to  me  like  that  portion — how  large  a  portion  I  am 
not  saying — of  the  benefits  of  prayer  which  are  independent 
of  external  results,  and  consist  in  the  benefit  to  character  from 
intense  absorption  in  an  inspiring  subject. 

Here  is  a  very  suggestive  interview  between  Moses  and 
"  Imperator  "  (Pr.  S.  P.  R.  IX,  255-6).  "  Our  friends  "  (line 
3)  refers  to  Rector,  Doctor,  and  Prudens.  "  John  King  "  was 
a  "  spirit "  that  used  to  "  materialize  "  at  these  seances.  "  The 
more  material  spirits,"  "  Kabbila,"  "  deceiving  spirits  " — isn't 
all  this  the  terminology  of  a  set  of  ideas  now  outworn,  which 
would  readily  have  obtained  lodgment  in  Moses's  mind  during 
his  youth,  and  which  tends  to  mark  the  whole  passage  as  an 
involuntary  creation  of  his  own? 

"  Q. — Was  anyone  present  at  the  last  seance  at  Mrs.  IVs  ? 
I  was  much  impressed.  A. — Yes.  I  was  not  present  myself 
but  our  friends  were  there.  We  do  not  advise  you  to  rest  much 
on  that.  Q. — What?  I  thought  it  conclusive  proof.  A. — You 
must  use  your  own  judgment.  We  do  but  warn  you  to  be  care- 
ful. Q. — Do  you  mean  to  say  it  was  not  genuine?  A. — We 
only  urge  you  to  be  wary.  The  manifestation  was  suspicious 
and  is  not  to  be  depended  on.  Q. — I  am  surprised.  Who 
writes?  A.— It  is  I, — tl:  S:  D.  [Imperator,  Servus  Dei. 
H.H.]  Q.— Then  you  will  tell  me.  Am  I  to  understand  that  the 
manifestation  was  not  of  a  materialized  form?  A. — We  do  not 
feel  it  part  of  our  work  to  save  you  from  the  use  of  your  own 
powers.  You  are  warned.  Exercise  your  observing  faculties. 
Q. — But  I  am  bewildered.  A. — It  is  needful  for  you  to  work 
through  such  experience.  We  may  not  save  you  from  it.  Only 
be  wary.  Q. — I  have  long  wanted  information  about  those 
forms  and  have  had  grave  doubts,  but  I  have  believed  in 
J.  K.  [John  King].  A.— It  is  not  our  plan  to  give  you  any 
further  information  now.  We  only  say  that  what  was  then 
presented  was  dubious.  Q. — But  I  am  to  write  about  it.  Was 
it  a  materialization  at  all  ?  Is  there  such  a  thing  ?  A. — You  will 
know  all  in  due  time,  but  that  was  not  reliable.  We  urge  you 
to  be  careful.  You  are  always  careful,  as  you  think.  But  be 
wary  as  to  generalizing  too  rapidly.  There  is  in  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  lower  spirits  much  deception,  nor  can  you  ever  be 


Ch.  XXV]     Moses  Compared  with  Mrs.  Piper  347 

sure  that  such  is  not  being  practised.  It  is  so  in  all  the  mani- 
festations in  which  the  more  material  spirits  are  concerned. 
Q. — You  do  not  tell  me  much.  A. — We  do  not  purpose  to  do  so. 
We  only  warn.  It  was  not  reliable.  Q. — But  I  had  my  hand 
in  J.  K.'s  and  the  other  on  the  medium's  body.  There  could 
be  no  deception  there.  A. — On  the  medium's  boot,  but  not  on 
his  body,  as  Kabbila  informs  us.  But  we  will  go  no  further. 
It  is  not  our  habit  to  go  so  far.  Seek  not  further  information. 
It  will  not  be  given.  We  do  not  wish  to  communicate  at  length 
now.  You  have  done  all  that  you  are  capable  of  doing.  Q. — 
But  I  want  to  ask  further.  Are  my  senses  good  for  nothing, 
or  am  I  so  easily  deceived?  A. — No,  no.  Neither.  But  you 
know  nothing  of  occult  influence  when  deceiving  spirits  are 
present.  The  mixture  of  the  true  and  false  would  make  it 
impossible  for  you  to  arrive  at  fact.  Hence  have  we  warned 
you  so  urgently  to  beware  of  the  introduction  of  such.  They 
are  fatal  to  our  work.  Cease  now. 

"tI:S:D. 

"tR.  [Rector.]" 

And  the  general  style  of  expression  and  the  signatures !  It 
all  looks  to  me  as  if  Moses  had  unconsciously  dramatized  the 
whole  thing,  and  imagining  St.  Paul,  as  later  indicated,  for 
the  role  of  "  Imperator  "  had  so  much  impressed  himself  as  to 
give  his  language  the  coloring  it  bears  throughout,  and,  as 
we  shall  see  later,  even  to  impress  Hodgson  and  Mrs. 
Piper. 

But  most  of  the  dramatizations  of  Mrs.  Piper  are  a  differ- 
ent matter.  There  are  scores,  probably  hundreds,  of  them  to 
each  one  of  Moses',  and  they  are  generally  of  people  who  are 
known  to  have  been  real,  and  who  are  recognizable  by  their 
friends.  Imperator  and  his  companions  may  have  been  real 
too,  but  there  is  little  in  the  nature  of  proof,  and  we  shall 
later  meet  something  much  like  disproof.  But  there  are  good 
reasons  for  giving  some  account  of  them. 

Here  is  a  characteristic  bit  of  Moses's  experiences  from  his 
diary,  quoted  in  Pr.  IX,  71 : 

"  On  an  evening  in  the  month  of  January,  1874,  I  repeatedly 

said  to  Mrs.  Speer,  '  Who  is  Emily  C ?    Her  name  keeps 

sounding  in  my  ear.'  Mrs.  Speer  replied  that  she  did  not  know 
anyone  of  that  name.  'Yes,'  I  said  very  emphatically,  'there 
is  someone  of  that  name  passed  over  to  the  world  of  spirit.' . . . 
It  became  a  regular  thing  for  us  to  receive  a  message  giving 
such  facts  as  an  obituary  notice  would  contain.  We  therefore 


348    Possession(?)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

looked  for  them,  and  we  found  an  announcement  of  the  death 

of  'Emily,  widow  of  the  late  Captain  C C .'    On  a 

subsequent  evening  in  the  following  year . . .  she  returned  again. 
Dr.  Speer  and  I  had  gone  out  for  a  walk  in  the  afternoon . . .  and 

at  our  seance  in  the  evening  came  '  Emily  C C .'    I 

inquired  what  brought  her,  and  her  answer  was  rapped  out  on 
the  table.  '  You  passed  my  grave.' ...  At  this  time  I  never 
went  near  a  graveyard  but  I  attracted  some  spirit,  identified 
afterwards  as  one  whose  body  lay  there.  I  said,  '  No,  that  is 
impossible;  we  have  been  near  no  graveyard,'  and  Dr.  Speer 
confirmed  my  impression.  The  communication,  however,  was 
persistent,  and  we  agreed  that  we  would  take  the  same  walk 
the  next  day.  We  did  so,  and  at  a  certain  place  I  had  an 
impulse  to  climb  up  and  look  over  a  wall . . .  and  my  eye  fell 

at  once  on  the  grave  of  'Emily  C C ,'  and  on  the 

dates  and  particulars  given  to  us,  all  exactly  accurate." 

As  Moses  intimates,  it  became  a  regular  thing  for  him 
to  have  such  experiences;  several  are  given.  They  seem 
to  mean  that  among  the  other  superstitions  with  which  his 
mind  was  saturated  was  that  of  spirits  haunting  their  graves. 
But  then  how  about  that  strange  power  to  see  through  a 
stone  wall,  or  at  least  feel  through  one,  which  perhaps  we  are 
all  going  to  admit  before  long  that  some  folks  have,  and 
perhaps  not  ?  In  addition  he  seems  to  show  here  the  subliminal 
memory  which,  without  the  operator's  knowledge,  retains  all 
sorts  of  things  that  come  out  in  the  conditions  where  that  do- 
all  and  bear-all  which  we  call  the  subliminal  self  has  full  swing. 
This  unlimited  capacity  even  in  the  most  ordinary  man  who 
dreams,  seems  to  point  to  something  not  really  in  the  ordinary 
man,  but  something  greater,  outside  him,  and  occasionally 
working  through  him.  Is  it  the  Cosmic  Soul? 

Here  is  another  instance  of  Moses's  overlooking  points 
obviously  open  to  criticism — of  the  faith  that  swalloweth  all 
things.  I  am  not  sure  Saint  Paul  included  that  character- 
istic, and  I  do  not  assert  that  Moses's  faith  may  not  have 
been  justified.  He  says  (Pr.  XI,  74) : 

"  There  stands ...  a  short  letter  written  automatically  by  me 
in  a  peculiar  archaic  handwriting,  phrased  in  a  quaint  old- 
fashioned  spelling.  It  is  signed  with  the  name  of  the  spirit . . . 

who  was  a  man  of  mark 1  have  since  obtained  a  letter  in 

his  handwriting,  an  old  yellow  document,  preserved  on  account 
of  the  autograph.  The  handwriting  in  my  book  is  a  fair  imita- 


Ch.  XXV]       The  Blanche  Abercromby  Case  349 

tion  of  this,  the  signature  is  exact,  and  the  piece  of  old-fash- 
ioned spelling  occurs  exactly  as  it  does  in  my  book.  This,  it 
was  said,  was  purposely  done  as  a  point  of  evidence." 

And  similarly  (p.  81)  : 

" I  have  had  repeated  cases  of  signatures  which  are 

veritable  facsimiles  of  those  used  by  the  persons  in  life;  such, 
for  example,  are  the  signatures  of  Beethoven,  Mozart,  and  of 
Swedenborg " 

This  would  be  more  remarkable  if  the  signatures  were  those 
of  private  persons,  which  he  would  have  been  less  apt  to  have 
seen  and  forgotten  having  seen,  but  retained  in  his  "sub- 
liminal memory."  Even  the  "  archaic  handwriting  phrased 
in  a  quaint  old-fashioned  spelling  "  may  be  similarly  accounted 
for.  I  don't  say  it  must  be. 

Here  is  Myers's  presentation  (from  Pr.  XI,  96)  of  the  cele- 
brated (if  a  thing  can  be  celebrated  among  a  small  part  of 
the  public)  "Blanche  Abercromby"  case  which  he  calls 

"  in  some  ways  the  most  remarkable  of  all,  from  the  series  of 
chances  which  have  been  needful  in  order  to  establish  its 
veracity.  The  spirit  in  question  is  that  of  a  lady  known  to 
me,  whom  Mr.  Moses  had  met,  I  believe,  once  only,  and  whom 
I  shall  call  Blanche  Abercromby 

"  This  lady  died  on  a  Sunday  afternoon,  about  twenty  years 
ago,  at  a  country  house  about  two  hundred  miles  from  London. 
Her  death,  which  was  regarded  as  an  event  of  public  interest, 
was  at  once  telegraphed  to  London,  and  appeared  in  Monday's 
Times;  but,  of  course,  on  Sunday  evening  no  one  in  London, 
save  the  Press  and  perhaps  the  immediate  family,  was  cog- 
nizant of  the  fact.  It  will  be  seen  that  on  that  evening,  near 
midnight,  a  communication,  purporting  to  come  directly  from 
her,  was  made  to  Mr.  Moses  at  his  secluded  lodgings  in  the 
north  of  London.  The  identity  was  some  days  later  corrobo- 
rated by  a  few  lines  purporting  to  come  directly  from  her,  and 
to  be  in  her  handwriting.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
Mr.  Moses  had  even  seen  this  handwriting.  His  one  known 
meeting  with  this  lady  and  her  husband  had  been  at  a  stance — 
not,  of  course,  of  his  own 

"  On  receiving  these  messages  Mr.  Moses  seems  to  have 
mentioned  them  to  no  one,  and  simply  gummed  down  the  pages 
in  his  MS.  book,  marking  the  book  outside  'Private  Matter.' 
The  book  when  placed  in  my  hands  was  still  thus  gummed 
down,  although  Mrs.  Speer  was  cognizant  of  the  communica- 
tion. I  opened  the  pages . . .  and  was  surprised  to  find  a  brief 


350    Possession ( f)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

letter  which,  though  containing  no  definite  facts,  was  entirely 
characteristic  of  the  Blanche  Abercromby  whom  I  had  known. 
...  I  happened  to  know  a  son  of  hers  sufficiently  well  to  be  able 
to  ask  his  aid — and ...  he  lent  me  a  letter  for  comparison.  The 
strong  resemblance  was  at  once  obvious,  but  the  A  of  the  sur- 
name was  made  in  the  letter  in  a  way  quite  different  from  that 
adopted  in  the  automatic  script.  The  son  then  allowed  me 

to  study  a  long  series  of  letters From  these  it  appeared  that 

during  the  last  year  of  her  life  she  had  taken  to  writing  the 
A  (as  her  husband  had  always  done)  in  the  way  in  which  it 
was  written  in  the  automatic  script." 

Here  is  the  equally  celebrated  Garfield  case,  but  there  does 
not  exist,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  a  word  of  testimony  regard- 
ing it  outside  of  Moses's  diary,  quoted  in  Pr.  XI,  102: 

"30,  St.  Peter's  Bedford. 

"  September  20th,  1881,  10  A.M. — This  morning,  on  awaking 
at  5.54  A.M.,  I  was  aware  of  a  spirit  who  desired  to  communi- 
cate. It  turned  out  to  be  Mentor,  with  him  B.  Franklin,  [Epes] 
Sargent,  and  others.  ^They  told  me  in  effect,  'The  President 
is  gone.  We  were  with  him  to  the  last.  He  died  suddenly, 
and  all  our  efforts  to  keep  him  were  unavailing.  We  labored 
hard,  for  his  life  was  of  incalculable  value  to  our  country.  He 
would  have  done  more  to  rescue  it  from  shame  than  anyone 
now  left.'  [Notwithstanding  the  universal  sympathy  and 
cordial  recognition  of  the  President's  many  virtues,  this  opinion 
was  by  no  means  universal  among  the  best-informed  Americans 
"  in  the  body "  at  the  time,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
opinion  in  the  "  spirit  world."  H.H.]  I  asked  why  it  had 
been  deemed  necessary  to  come  to  me  with  the  news.  It  was 
replied  that  a  period  of  great  activity  in  the  spirit  world  was 
now  being  renewed,  and  that  my  sympathies  with  him  and 
with  his  work,  and  their  own  knowledge  of  me,  had  inclined 

them   to  bring  the   news The  evening  papers — Globe   and 

Echo — which  I  purchased  at  4.30  P.M.,  gave  me  the  first  mun- 
dane information  of  the  event.  It  is  now  stated  that  he  died 
at  10.50  P.M.,  and  on  the  19th  (yesterday).  That  in  English 
time  is  3.50  A.M.  of  this  day,  20th,  or  two  hours  before  I  woke 
and  got  the  message." 

Here  is  the  famous  steam-roller  incident,  the  most  striking 
evidential  piece  of  Moses's  ostensibly  heteromatic  writing,  and 
there  is  much  of  the  same  kind.  This  is  taken  from  his 
diary  (Pr.  XI,  42)  : 

"February  20th,  1874 The  Baron  had  previously  mag- 
netized me  very  strongly,  and  had  rendered  me  more  than  usually 
clairvoyant.  He  also  recognized  a  spirit  in  the  room,  but 


Ch.  XXV]  The  Steam  Roller  Case  351 

thougjit  it  was  the  spirit  of  a  living  person.  After  dinner, 
when  we  got  upstairs,  I  felt  an  uncontrollable  inclination  to 
write,  and  I  asked  the  Baron  to  lay  his  hand  upon  my  arm. 
It  began  to  move  very  soon,  and  I  fell  into  a  deep  trance.  As 
far  as  I  can  gather  from  the  witnesses,  the  hand  then  wrote 
out,  '  I  killed  myself  to-day.'  This  was  preceded  by  a  very 
rude  drawing  ["  which  resembled  a  horse  fastened  to  a  kind 
of  car  or  truck,"  Mr.  Percival  says  in  The  Spiritualist  of 
March  27th],  and  then  'Under  steam-roller,  Baker-street, 
medium  passed,'  [i.e.,  W.  S.  M.,  H.H.]  was  written.  At  the 
same  time  I  spoke  in  the  trance  and  rose  and  apparently 
motioned  something  away,  saying,  '  Blood '  several  times.  This 
was  repeated,  and  the  spirit  asked  for  prayer.  Mrs.  G.  said  a 
few  words  of  prayer,  and  I  came  out  of  the  trance  at  last, 
feeling  very  unwell.  On  the  following  day  Dr.  Speer  and  I 
walked  down  to  Baker-street  and  asked  the  policeman  on  duty 
if  any  accident  had  occurred  there.  He  told  us  that  a  man 
had  been  killed  by  the  steam-roller  at  9  A.M " 

Here  is  Mr.  Percival's  comment  on  the  same  incident 
(Pr.  XI,  76-78) : 

"  Neither  he  nor  anyone  present  was  aware  that  a  man  had 
committed  suicide  there  in  the  morning  by  throwing  himself 
under  a  steam-roller.  A  brief  notice  of  the  occurrence  appeared 
in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  in  the  evening,  but  none  of  the  party 

had  seen  that  paper It  is  worth  remarking  that  on  the  front 

of  the  steam-roller  which  was  used  in  Baker-street  a  horse  is 
represented  in  brass,  and  this,  perhaps,  may  serve  to  account 
for  its  appearance  in  the  medium's  drawing,  where  we  should 
certainly  not  expect  to  find  it." 

Myers  says  (Pr.  XI,  92)  : 

"  Further  information  about  this  suicide  was  given  by  entry, 
February  23,  1874.  It  is  remarkable  that  '  Miss  X,'  a  frequent 
contributor  to  the  Pr.,  then  a  child,  was  prevented  by  a  monition 
(as  she  informs  me)  from  entering  the  street  where  the  traces 
of  this  incident  were  still  risible." 

"  February  23rd,  1874. 

"  Q. — I  very  much  wish  to  communicate  with  Imperator. 
FA  long  pause.]  A. — '  Whatever  communication  you  hold  must 
be  brief.  You  are  unfit  to  commune  now.'  Q.— That  spirit 
who  communicated  at  Mrs.  Gregory's.  ("The  place  of  the 
steam-roller  communication.  H.H.]  A. — '  He  was  what  he 
said.  It  surprises  us  much  that  he  should  have  been  able  to 
attach  himself  to  you.  It  was  owing  to  your  being  near  the 
place  where  he  met  his  bodily  death.  Do  not  direct  your  mind 
strongly  to  the  subject  lest  he  vex  you.'  Q.— What  does  he 
want  ?  Can  I  help  him  ?  A. — '  He  was  wretched  and  sought 


352    Possession(f)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

help  in  ignorance.  Prayer  will  aid  him.'  Q. — Well,  now,  how 
comes  it  that  he  woke  at  once,  and  Sunshine  [an  allusion  to 
somebody  who  had  died  earlier.  H.H.]  sleeps  still?  A. — 'He 
has  not  yet  slept.  It  will  be  well  if  he  gets  repose  which  will 
enable  him  to  progress  hereafter.  . 

"<tI:S:D. 

"'xTheophilus.'" 

The  following  bit  of  Moses's  heteromatic  writing  refers 
to  the  same  incident  (Pr.  XI,  921)  : 

"  February  24th,  1874. 

" Q. — Is  the  spirit  unharmed  by  such  a  ghastly  mutila- 
tion as  that  ? . . .  A. — The  spirit  body  is  not  to  be  harmed  by 
injury  to  the  body  of  earth  otherwise  than  by  the  shock.  And 
the  very  shock  might  stir  it  rudely  into  action,  and  excite  it 
rather  than  lull  it  into  quiescence.  You  are  not  now  in  a  con- 
dition which  enables  us  to  go  far  into  the  subject.  You  have 
far  from  recovered  your  spiritual  tone  as  yet.  Q. — Then  that 
spirit  haunted  the  place  of  its  departure?  A. — It  is  usually 
so  that  a  spirit  which  has  so  rudely  been  severed  from  the  body 
would  hover  near  even  for  a  long  time  after.  Q. — How  did  it 
come  to  pitch  on  me?  A. — You  passed  by,  and  being  in  a 
highly  sensitive  condition  the  disturbed  spirit  would  naturally 
be  attracted  to  your  sphere,  even  as  iron  is  attracted  to  a  power- 
ful magnet.  Moreover,  when  he  came  near  he  would  be  enabled 
to  discern  you  by  the  aura  which  surrounds  you  and  which 
is  visible  to  the  spirit  eye.  Light  and  attraction  would  both 
enable  him  to  recognize  a  channel  of  communication  which  he 
longed  for.  You  have  been  told  before  that  an  aura  surrounds 
all  material  objects,  and  that  aura  in  the  case  of  a  medium  is 

recognizable  afar  off  by  spirit  eyes All  spirits  know  this, 

though  all  do  not  [suspicious  grammar  for  such  a  very  heavy 

intellectual   swell.   H.H.]   profoundly  understand  it Hence 

it  is  that  the  highly  developed  are  more  open  to  attack  from 
the  grosser  spirits.  Q. — Then  to  spirit  eye,  the  aura  declares 
the  character?  A. — To  the  more  developed  and  progressed 
[He  has  just  intimated  that  the  spirit  in  question  was  anything 
but  "developed  and  progressed."  H.H.]  it  does  so,  and  hence 
the  concealment  is  not  possible  in  our  spheres.  The  spirit 
carries  its  character  impressed  on  the  very  atmosphere  it 
breathes.  This  is  a  law  of  our  being.  Q. — Very  beautiful,  but 
very  awful!  A. — Nay,  friend,  not  so:  but  a  great  safeguard, 
seeing  that  we  know  we  are  open  to  the  gaze  and  the  knowledge 
of  all.  It  is  well  that  it  should  be  so.  We  pause." 

To  me  all  this  sort  of  thing  seems  to  speak  as  plainly 
of  the  imagination  of  the  Anglican  clergyman,  as  Judge  Ed- 


Ch.  XXV]    Reading  of  Closed  Books  by  "  Spirits  "        353 

rounds'  visions  speak  of  the  imagination  of  a  man  of  matter- 
of-fact  mind  who,  presumably,  as  such  men  often  do,  loved 
such  reading  as  the  Apocalypse  and  Milton  and  Bunyan,  and 
who  fell  into  the  role  of  "medium." 

But  admitting  all  that,  how  account  for  the  testimony  of 
the  Speers  and  half  a  dozen  other  good  people  to  Moses's  tel- 
ekinetic  performance — his  lights  and  music  and  materializa- 
tions, and  the  true  things  he  told  which  he  could  not  have 
learned  by  any  means  we  are  as  yet  familiar  with  ? 

The  Reading  of  Closed  Books  by  "  Spirits  " 

If  the  following  is  correctly  told  it  indicates  something 
more  than  telepathy.  It  is  an  alleged  interview,  with  the 
answers  automatically  written,  between  Moses  and  some 
"spirit "  whose  name  is  not  given  (Pr.  S.  P.  R.,  XI,  106)  : 

"  Q. — Can  you  read?  A. — No,  friend,  I  cannot,  but  Zachary 
Gray  can,  and  Rector.  I  am  not  able  to  materialize  myself,  or 
to  command  the  elements.  Q. — Are  either  of  those  spirits 

here  ?    A.— I  will  bring  one  by  and  by.    I  will  send Rector 

is  here.  Q. — I  am  told  you  can  read.  Is  that  so?  Can  you 
read  a  book?  A. — [Spirit  handwriting  changed.] — Yes,  friend, 
with  difficulty.  Q. — Will  you  write  for  me  the  last  line  of  the 
first  book  of  the  ^Eneid?  A. — Wait. — Omnibus  errantem  terris 
et  fluctibus  astas.  [This  was  right.]  Q. — Quite  so.  But  I 
might  have  known  it.  Can  you  go  to  the  book-case,  take  the 
last  book  but  one  on  the  second  shelf,  and  read  me  the  last 
paragraph  of  the  ninety-fourth  page?  I  have  not  seen  it,  and 
do  not  even  know  its  name.  A. — '  I  will  curtly  prove  by  a  short 
historical  narrative,  that  popery  is  a  novelty,  and  has  gradually 
arisen  or  grown  up  since  the  primitive  and  pure  time  of  Chris- 
tianity, not  only  since  the  apostolic  age,  but  even  since  the 
lamentable  union  of  kirk  and  the  state  by  Constantino.'  [The 
book  on  examination  proved  to  be  a  queer  one  called  Roger's 
Antipopopriestian,  an  attempt  to  liberate  and  purify  Christian- 
ity from  Popery,  Politikirkality,  and  Priestrule.  The  extract 
given  above  was  accurate,  but  the  word  '  narrative '  substituted 
for  '  account.']  Q. — How  came  I  to  pitch  upon  so  appropriate 
a  sentence?  A. — I  know  not,  my  friend.  It  was  by  coinci- 
dence. The  word  was  changed  by  error.  I  knew  it  when  it 
was  done,  but  would  not  change.  Q. — How  do  you  read?  You 
wrote  more  slowly,  and  by  fits  and  starts.  A. — I  wrote  what 
I  remembered,  and  then  I  went  for  more.  It  is  a  special  effort 
to  read,  and  useful  only  as  a  test.  Your  friend  was  right  last 
night;  we  can  read,  but  only  when  conditions  are  very  good. 


354    Possession(f)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

We  will  read  once  again,  and  write  and  then  impress  you  of 
the  book: — 'Pope  is  the  last  great  writer  of  that  school  of 
poetry,  the  poetry  of  the  intellect,  or  rather  of  the  intellect 
mingled  with  the  fancy.'  That  is  truly  written.  Go  and  take 
the  eleventh  book  on  the  same  shelf.  [I  took  a  book  called 
Poetry,  Romance,  and  Rhetoric.}  It  will  open  at  the  page  for 
you.  Take  it  and  read,  and  recognize  our  power,  and  the  per- 
mission which  the  great  and  good  God  gives  us,  to  show  you 
of  our  power  over  matter.  To  Him  be  glory.  Amen.  [The 
book  opened  at  page  145,  and  there  was  the  quotation  perfectly 
true.  I  had  not  seen  the  book  before:  certainly  had  no  idea  of 
its  contents]  [These  books  were  in  Dr.  Speer's  library. — 
F.  W.  H.  M.]  " 

Here  is  the  last  veridical  heteromatism  quoted  from  Moses 
in  the  Pr.  S.  P.  E.  It  is  in  XI,  103.  Mrs.  Speer  writes: 

"Dr.  Speer  died  February  9th,  1889,  and  shortly  after  his 
death  Mr.  Moses  received  from  him  a  remarkable  proof  of 
identity,  of  which  he  wrote  me  an  account  at  the  time 

"  Mr.  S.  M.  came  one  Sunday  to  dine  with  us.  He  looked 
strange  and  remarked  to  me,  '  I  have  seen  your  husband  again, 
and  he  sent  you  a  message  which  I  do  not  understand.'  He 
seemed  troubled,  and  I  saw  he  was  unable  to  take  any  dinner. 
Suddenly  he  took  out  his  pocket-book  and  rapidly  wrote  some- 
thing in  one  of  the  sheets,  tore  it  out,  and  handed  it  to  me, 
saying, '  Can  you  make  anything  out  of  this  ? '  I  saw  a  messag<\ 

written  'Tell  dearest  all's  well.'  The  word  omitted  was 

a  pet  name  he  often  called  me  when  alone.  I  think  no  one 
had  ever  heard  it,  and  I  am  quite  sure  Mr.  Moses  never  had. 
The  name  is  too  absurd  to  print,  as  pet  names  often  are " 

Now  to  sum  up  Moses.  The  following  case  was  not  by 
automatic  writing,  but  by  raps.  I  give  it  because  of  its 
instructiveness  regarding  Moses's  mental  make-up.  He  says 
(Pr.  XI,  72)  : 

"Perhaps  I  may  here  mention  a  case  in  which  I  endeavored 
to  mislead  a  communicating  spirit  but  without  any  success. 
If  there  be  truth  in  the  allegations  of  the  too-clever  people  that 
constitute  the  Society  for  Psychical  Eesearch  [Moses  resigned 
in  1886,  disgusted  because  his  associates  would  not  swallow 
everything  that  he  would.  H.H.]  there  should  have  been  con- 
veyed from  my  brain  to  that  of  the  impersonal  entity  with 
which  I  communicated  the  falsity  I  had  fabricated.  [This  is 
a  sheer  Mosesism,  see  below.  H.H.]  There  came  a  spirit 

who  represented  herself  to  be  my  grandmother 1  then  asked 

if  she  remembered  me  as  a  child.  She  did.  I  proceeded  to 
detail  two  imaginary  incidents  such  as  might  occur  in  a  child's 


Ch.  XXV]     Defects  of  the  Subliminal  Theory  355 

life.    I  did  it  so  naturally  that  my  friends  were  completely 

deceived Not  so,  however,  my  '  Intelligent  Operator  at  the 

other  end  of  the  line.'  She  refused  altogether  to  assent  to  my 
story.  She  stopped  me  by  a  simple  remark  that  she  remembered 
nothing  of  the  sort. ...  I  certainly  rose  from  the  table  convinced 
that  I  had  been  talking  to  a  person  that  desired  to  tell  the 
truth,  and  that  was  extremely  careful  to  be  exact  in  statement." 

If  the  spirit  was  an  echo  of  Moses's  self,  of  course  it  would 
not  echo  what  Moses  knew  to  be  false  (except  so  far  as  some 
folks  delight  in  what  is  false,  which  apparently  Moses  did 
not).  But  assuming  it  to  be  an  echo,  the  dramatic  char- 
acter of  the  responses  would  remain  to  be  accounted  for. 
Yet  even  that  would  not  seem  difficult  to  anybody  who  has 
successfully  written  dialogue.  Such  a  person  knows  that,  in 
such  a  mind,  thoughts  readily  take  the  shape  of  dialogue  and 
the  dramatic  tinge  naturally  resulting.  But  admitting  that, 
we  still  have  to  account  for  the  fact  that  these  dramatic 
impersonations  often  appear  in  the  automatic  writing  and 
trance  utterances  of  people  who  never  show  any  dramatic 
power  in  the  ways  we  consider  normal ;  and  then  of  course  the 
difficulty,  with  difficulties  generally,  is  pitchforked  on  to  "  the 
subliminal  self."  This  has  been  done  until,  to  at  least  my 
perhaps  irreverent  imagination,  the  strictly  individual  sub- 
liminal self  is  beginning  to  look  like  a  joke.  And  yet  the 
readiness  of  so  many  intelligent  people  to  attribute  every- 
thing superusual  to  it  is  one  of  many  circumstances  that 
are  making  it  loom  into  an  immensity  of  which  perhaps  we 
have  had  some  glimpse,  but  of  which  their  imaginations  do 
not  yet  all  seem  to  have  caught  the  significance. 

All  this  carries  instruction  regarding  the  queer  intellect 
of  Moses — an  intellect  that  could  assume  that  the  falsity 
would  be  conveyed,  but  that  the  telepathy  would  stop  at  the 
convenient  point  of  not  conveying  the  fact  that  it  was  a 
falsity;  and  an  intellect  that  could  utterly  ignore  so  obvious 
a  reflection  from  himself,  and  attribute  the  phenomena  en- 
tirely to  another  intelligence.  This  last  point,  however,  may 
not  be  fairly  open  to  criticism  regarding  the  mind  of  a  firm 
believer:  the  criticism,  if  directed  at  all,  should  be  directed 
to  the  belief. 

There  is  a  degree  of  ingenuousness  in  the  following  sen- 
tence which,  especially  when  associated  with  things  that  have 


356    Possession  (?)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

been  noted  before,  inclines  me  to  quote  it  as  an  element  to 
be  considered  in  estimating  Moses's  mind  (Pr.  IX,  291)  : 

"  So  closed  a  most  impressive  seance  ;  in  which  the  opinion 
of  the  intelligences  themselves  declared  unmistakably  [Italics 
mine.  H.H.]  for  the  Theory  of  Departed  Spirits.  Though 
this  would  not  form  any  strong  argument  to  convince  one  who 
had  made  up  his  mind  in  an  opposite  direction,  still  it  must  be 
allowed  to  have  its  weight." 

The  following  passage,  too,  is  so  peculiar  that  the  reader 
may  care  to  take  it  into  consideration  (Pr.  IX,  291)  : 

"  Taken  in  connection  with  other  collateral  evidence  such  as 
the  materialized  spirit  form,  the  strongly  marked  individuality 
which  pervades  communications  from  each  particular  spirit,  the 
totally  different  nature  of  the  knock  in  each  case,  and  the  fact 
of  certain  tests  being  given,  the  balance  of  evidence  must  be 
allowed  to  be  strong. 

"  For  instance,  I  see  a  materialized  form  which  bears  re- 
semblance to  a  deceased  friend  (Step  No.  1).  I  see  that  form 
standing  by  during  the  progress  of  phenomena  (Step  No.  2). 
A  knock  different  from  any  other  is  given  (Step  No.  3).  That 
knock  gives  a  communication  which  purports  to  come  from  the 
person  whose  form  I  see  near  me  (Step  No.  4).  Questioned, 
that  communicating  intelligence  asserts  in  the  most  solemn 
manner  that  it  is  what  it  pretends  to  be,  and  persists  in  that 
statement  on  being  adjured  (Step  No.  5).  On  being  further 
pressed  a  test  known  only  to  myself  is  given  to  prove  identity 
(Step  No.  6).  That  information  is  confirmed  by  other  com- 
municating intelligences,  who  knock  with  their  own  special 
knock,  and  are  apparently  distinct  individualities  (Step  No. 


"  Step  No.  5,"  I  think,  will  be  apt  to  strike  the  hard- 
headed  reader  as  showing  the  same  ingenuousness  manifested 
in  the  quotation  before  the  last.  Moses  continues: 

"  This  forms  a  strong  link  [Does  he  mean  chain  ?  There  are 
seven  elements.  H.H.]  of  credence  in  favor  of  the  theory 
advanced  by  the  intelligences  themselves.  On  the  other  side 
is  the  manifest  fact  that  communications  purporting  to  come 
from  our  deceased  friends  are  not  always  trustworthy,  and  that 
they  are  generally  marked  by  evidences  of  intellectual  weak- 
nesses. It  may  be  that  the  falsehoods  are  traceable  to  lying 
spirits  who  personate  spirits  of  good,  and  that  the  low  order 
(intellectually  speaking)  of  the  communications  may  be  ac- 
counted for  by  the  tortuous  channel  through  which  they  come 
and  the  medium  through  which  they  have  been  filtered.  But 


Ch.  XXV]      Difficulties  Support  Genuineness  357 

the  explanation  is  not  perfectly  satisfactory.  And  there  is  the 
additional  stumbling-block  that  it  is  prime  facie  extremely 
unlikely  that  the  spirits  of  the  noble,  the  learned,  and  the 
pure  should  be  concerned  in  the  production  of  physical  and 
intellectual  phenomena  which,  when  not  silly,  are  frequently 
mischievous,  and  when  distinctly  true  are  not  new,  and  being 
new  are  not  true." 

It  is  now  held  by  common  consent  that  these  communica- 
tions, no  matter  if  thoroughly  genuine,  are,  in  their  nature, 
difficult  to  make;  and  the  reader  as  he  goes  on  will  find 
growing  reason  to  believe  the  same.  Probably  he  may  even 
come  to  regard  imperfection  as  a  tag  of  genuineness. 

And  connected  with  this  hypothetical  difficulty  of  com- 
munication is  another  point  not  hypothetical  at  all.  Plainly 
it  is  not  part  of  the  cosmic  order  (or  divine  plan,  if  you 
prefer)  that  at  our  present  stage  of  evolution  we  should 
know  much  of  any  possible  future  life,  even  if  there  is  one. 
There  is  more  to  say  on  these  points  later:  at  present  it  is 
enough  if  we  continue  our  examination  with  a  realization 
that  it  is  a  priori  probable  that  communication  between  this 
little  universe  of  our  experience  and  the  presumably  greater 
one  beyond,  would  be  difficult,  and  not  to  any  great  degree 
possible  to  our  present  faculties  or  consistent  with  our  pres- 
ent duties.  And  yet  it  does  seem  possible  that  we  have  lat- 
terly attained  a  degree  of  evolution  consistent  with  our  having 
something  more  than  the  say-so  of  prophets  to  assure  us 
that  a  future  life  exists  and  is  happy. 

If  these  are  reasonable  positions  we  need  not  take  much 
account  of  the  fact  that  the  communications  are  frequently 
of  the  character  Moses  calls  a  "  stumbling-block."  My  read- 
ing, however,  has  not,  that  I  remember,  covered  any  appar- 
ently genuine  ones  which  were  "  mischievous  "  in  any  worse 
sense  than  sportive,  though  there  may  have  been  such.  When 
I  say  "  genuine  "  of  course  I  mean  only  honest — not  deliber- 
ately fraudulent.  I  do  not  mean  the  word  to  endorse  a 
spiritistic  interpretation. 

The  notion  of  "  lying  spirits,"  in  which  Moses  and  many 
others  deal,  is  of  course  a  part  of  the  traditional  theology, 
but  it  hardly  seems  necessary,  and  will  probably  be  found 
peculiarly  repulsive  by  those  who  regard  evil  as  simply  an 
exaggeration  or  disproportion,  which  includes  a  lack  of  the 


358    Possession  (?)  in-Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

good,  which  is  incident  to  the  imperfections  of  the  present 
life. 

A  control  purporting  to  be  Moses,  later  gave  up  "  lying 
spirits  "  and  a  good  deal  more  that  was  his.  See  Chapter 
XXXV. 

Moses  goes  on  to  say  (Pr.  IX,  292)  : 

"  The  argument  that  God  permits  for  the  establishment  of  a 
fading  faith,  manifestations  such  as  these,  would  satisfactorily 
dispose  of  all  objections." 

I  should  be  a  bit  slow  to  accept  this  argument  unless  the 
manifestations  were  clearer,  but  Myers  tells  us  (Pr.  IX, 
293-4) : 

"Mr.  Moses  came  in  a  few  months  more  to  believe  com- 
pletely in  the  actual  identity  of  the  communicating  intelli- 
gences. But  this  passage  in  his  diary  [i.e.,  the  preceding,  not 
all  of  which  have  I  quoted.  H.H.]  tends  to  show  (what  on 
other  testimony  also  I  believe  to  have  been  the  case)  that  he 
was  by  no  means  anxious  to  believe  in,  or  to  defer  to,  the 
claims  of  alleged  'spirit  guides/  His  previous  Anglican  con- 
victions were  very  strong;  and  his  intellectual  habit  of  mind 
inclined  rather  to  the  side  of  stubbornness  than  of  pliancy." 

When  even  Myers  perpetrates  such  a  phrase  as  "  intellectual 
habit  of  mind  "  we  can  well  allow  anybody  the  margin  for 
inadvertences  that  I  suggested  should  be  allowed  to  Moses, 
and  that  we  all  occasionally  need. 

We  have  to  recognize,  however,  in  his  relations  to  his 
superusual  experiences,  that  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  he  was,  as  Myers  reminds  us,  an  Anglican 
clergyman,  and  that  his  experiences  strongly  appear  to  be 
in  writing  colored  by  his  type  of  mind.  If  we  want  any 
farther  illustrations  of  what  that  type  was,  they  abound  in  the 
next  extract. 

From  a  letter  of  Mr.  Moses  to  Mrs.  Speer,  dated  April, 
1876  (Pr.  XI,  63)  : 

" I  send  you  a  package  which  you  will  see  is  '  spiritual.' 

It  contains  a  fragment  of  spirit-drapery  sweetened  by  some 
spirit  musk.  Magus  is  the  operator,  and  I  believe  Mentor 
with  him.  At  any  rate,  those  two  have  been  at  work.  I  think 
that  the  musk  smells  more  powerfully  than  usual.  I  had  a 
long  and  very  beautiful  communication  from  Imperator  yes- 
terday (Easter  Day)  which  I  am  minded  to  copy  out  and  print. 


Ch.  XXV]         Letter,  Moses  to  Mrs.  Speer  359 

Easter  Day  seems  to  be  a  favorite  with  them.  I  have  had  a 
message  on  that  day  every  year.  The  idea  is  the  passage  from 
Death  to  Life  symbolized  by  the  Crucifixion  and  Resurrection, 
and  typifying  the  death  of  Self  Denial,  and  Self  Sacrifice  lead- 
ing to  the  Regeneration  or  Resurrection  of  the  Spirit  from  dead 
Matter  to  the  higher  life.  It  is  well  worked  out,  and  very 
striking.  There  was  also  a  communication  written  out  about 
the  state  of  affairs  in  the  spiritual  world.  You  must  read  what 
Imperator  says.  He  does  not  speak  hopefully,  and  wishes  us 
not  to  meet  yet,  though  he  evidently  contemplates  the  resuming 
of  our  circle  hereafter.  But  by  that  time,  he  says,  my  physical 
mediumship  will  either  be  absolutely  under  control,  so  as  to 
be  no  longer  fraught  with  danger,  or  will  have  ceased.  The 
latter  seems  to  be  implied,  though  he  seems  to  hint  that  material 
evidence  will  always  be  forthcoming.  He  is  very  decisive  in 
saying  what  he  does,  and  says  that  we  are  none  of  us  ever  left. 
It  gives  me  a  very  strong  idea  of  prearranged  plans  and  of 
wise  and  powerful  protection.  He  evidently  looks  far  ahead; 
his  plans  are  now  for  the  far  future,  and  the  mind  is  first  pre- 
pared. I  am  quite  conscious  of  that. 

"  I  shall  probably  hear  more  before  we  see  each  other.  I 
heard  nothing  of  the  Moravians  this  year." 

This  refers  to  a  poltergeist  racket  alleged  to  be  raised 
every  Easter  by  the  ghosts  of  people  buried  in  a  Moravian 
churchyard  near  which  Moses  lived.  Apparently  he  could 
not  be  near  a  churchyard  without  stirring  up  a  ghost.  He 
says  so  himself  (Pr.  XI,  71).  He  continues  the  present 
theme : 

"Nor  was  I  conscious  of  any  'presence/  which  looks  like 
a  withdrawal  from  the  objective.  But  Mentor's  drapery  and 
musk  are  objective  enough.  ['  The  letter  from  which  these 
extracts  are  taken'  (adds  Mrs.  Speer),  'still  retains  the  scent 
of  the  musk  referred  to  at  the  commencement,  as  "sweetening 
the  spirit-drapery,"  although  it  was  written  nearly  seventeen 
years  ago.  The  drapery  is  lost,  but  the  strong  perfume  of  musk 
remains  fresh  and  pungent.']  " 

On  May  2nd,  1880,  occurred  the  last  sitting  which  Mrs. 
Speer  has  recorded.  She  concludes  her  records  in  Light 
(October  21st,  1893)  with  the  following  words: 

"I  have  now  come  to  the  end  of  the  seances  at  which  any 
notes  were  properly  taken.  Other  meetings  we  have  since  had 
occasionally,  and  at  times  Imperator  spoke  through  Mr.  S.  M. 
until  within  a  few  months  of  his  decease.  Raps  were  sometimes 
heard  and  messages  given.  Musk  and  coral  were  also  brought 
and  scattered  over  the  room  at  several  different  times.  Half 


360    Possession  (?)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

that  took  place  could  not  be  recorded,  and  often  the  addresses 
were  imperfectly  taken  down.  It  is  also  impossible  to  give 
any  idea  of  the  impression  produced  upon  the  circle  by  the 
beauty  and  refinement  of  some  of  the  manifestations,  or  by  the 
power  and  dignity  of  Imperator's  influence  and  personality." 

"Musk,"  of  all  perfumes,  for  "refinement"!  I  confess 
that  the  effect  on  me  of  Imperator's  musk  and  other  "  prop- 
erties," and  so  much  of  his  utterances  as  I  have  cared  to 
read,  has  been  something  like  that  of  an  ordinary  service  and 
sermon  in  a  very  "  high  "  church.  Whether  such  would  be 
the  effect  on  others,  I  don't  know;  and  whether  such  an 
effect  answers  to  one's  spiritual  needs  is  a  personal  matter. 

At  first  one  result  of  the  effect  on  me  was  an  impulse  to 
relegate  the  whole  thing  to  the  limbo  of  buried  superstitions. 
But  then  I  reflected  that,  though  Moses's  manifestations  don't 
happen  to  suit  my  tastes,  a  large  portion  of  Mrs.  Piper's, 
outside  of  those  from  the  Imperator  group,  do,  and  that 
fact  is  to  me  an  argument  for  their  genuineness,  though  not 
a  proof  of  it.  Why,  then,  shouldn't  the  manifestations 
through  Moses  be  suited  to  people  of  a  different  taste,  of 
whom  there  are  a  great  many  more  than  of  my  taste,  and 
some  of  whom,  to  judge  by  the  portrait  of  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Speer,  and  of  Moses  too,  are  certainly  in  some  respects  a 
great  deal  better  people  than  I  am? 

If  the  order  of  nature  really  does  permit  communications 
with  intelligences  beyond  our  ordinary  observation,  there  ap- 
pears no  reason  why  those  communications  should  not  be  con- 
formed to  the  tastes  and  capacities  of  the  people  participating 
in  them,  and  should  not  be  credited  to  spirits  possessing,  in 
the  respective  cases,  congeniality  with  the  mediums.  People 
who  like  musk  go  to  heaven,  I  suppose,  as  well  as  those  who 
don't,  and  are  just  as  apt  to  talk  back  to  earth,  and  if  Moses, 
with  all  his  virtues,  happened  not  only  to  like  musk,  but  also 
to  be  a  prig  (I  don't  know  well  enough  to  say  whether  he  was 
or  not),  why  should  not  his  intimates  in  the  other  world  like 
musk,  and  be  prigs  too? 

But  Mrs.  Piper  was  nothing  of  that  kind,  nor  by  a  long 
shot  was  Hodgson,  unless  Imperator  and  his  gang  corrupted 
him  toward  the  last  of  his  life  here,  which,  as  will  be  seen, 
doesn't  seem  indicated  by  Hodgson's  alleged  post-mortem  com- 
munications ;  and  yet,  as  will  also  be  seen,  the  Imperator  group 


Ch.  XXV]          Moses'  "Spirit  Teachings"  361 

(or  at  least  some  manifestations  doubtfully  professing  to  be 
they)  swooped  down  on  him  and  Mrs.  Piper  too. 

Perhaps  my  distaste  for  all  that  sort  of  thing  is  abnormal. 
If  so,  I  am  of  course  not  entitled  to  pass  judgment.  As  the 
earth  is  big  enough  for  all  of  us,  so  presumably  will  heaven 
be  too,  and  the  change  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  probably 
will  not  be  of  all  of  us  to  the  same  pattern;  and  so  the  in- 
dication of  there  being  a  variety  of  patterns  ought  not  to  be 
taken  as  an  argument  that  all  the  indications  are  fallacious. 

Of  what  were  the  profundities  which  Imperator  wrote 
through  Moses,  Myers  gave  little  idea.  I  don't  find  the 
Spirit  Teachings  in  which  Moses  chronicled  them,  a  book 
over  which  I  care  to  spend  much  time.  I  did  give  an  evening 
to  it,  however,  and  found  that  it  expresses  the  reactions 
of  the  soul  of  an  Anglican  clergyman  with  itself  or  kindred 
souls.  For  those  who  are  fond  of  tracing  the  evolution  of 
ideas  of  questionable  present  value,  from  primitive  peoples 
down  to  the  primitive-minded  people  to-day,  the  book  may 
have  interest  and,  possibly,  value.  But  it  will  not  do  much 
for  those  who  find  the  days  microscopically  short  for  keeping 
up  with  live  interests. 

Here  is  a  fair  enough  sample.  Perhaps  you  can  find  where 
the  superhuman  wisdom  comes  in:  I  can't.  But  I  can  find  a 
good  deal  of  old-fashioned  anthropomorphism. 

M.  A.  Oxon :  Spirit  Teachings,  London,  1907,  p.  16 : 

"  The  other,  the  philosopher,  hampered  by  no  theories  of  what 
ought  to  be,  and  what  therefore  must  be — bound  by  no  sub- 
servience to  sectarian  opinion,  to  the  dogmas  of  a  special  school, 
free  from  prejudice,  receptive  of  truth,  whatever  that  truth  may 
be,  so  it  be  proven — he  seeks  into  the  mysteries  of  Divine  wis- 
dom, and,  searching,  finds  his  happiness.  He  need  hare  no  fear 
of  exhausting  the  treasures,  they  are  without  end.  His  joy 
throughout  life  shall  be  to  gather  ever  richer  stores  of  knowledge, 
truer  ideas  of  God.  The  union  of  those  two — the  philanthropist 
and  the  philosopher — makes  the  perfect  man.  Those  who  unite 
the  two.  progress  further  than  spirits  who  progress  alone. 

" '  His  life,'  you  say.    Is  life  eternal? 

"  Yes ;  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  so.  Life  is  of  two 
stages — progressive  and  contemplative.  We,  who  are  still  pro- 
gressive, and  who  hope  to  progress  for  countless  myriads  of  ages 
(as  you  eay),  after  the  farthest  point  to  which  your  finite  mind 


362    Possessionf?)  in  Heteromatic  Writing    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

can  reach,  we  know  naught  of  the  life  of  contemplation.  But  we 
believe  that  far — f ar  in  the  vast  hereafter — there  will  be  a  period 
at  which  progressive  souls  will  eventually  arrive,  when  progress 
has  brought  them  to  the  very  dwelling-place  of  the  Omnipotent, 
and  that  there  they  will  lay  aside  their  former  state,  and  bask 
in  the  full  light  of  Deity,  in  contemplation  of  all  the  secrets  of 
the  universe.  Of  this  we  cannot  tell  you.  It  is  too  high.  Soar 
not  to  such  vast  heights.  Life  is  unending,  as  you  count  it,  but 
you  are  concerned  with  the  approach  to  its  threshold,  not  with 
the  inner  temple. 

"  Of  course.  Do  you  know  more  of  God  than  you  did  on 
earth  f 

"  We  know  more  of  the  operations  of  His  love — more  of  the 
operations  of  that  beneficent  Power  which  controls  and  guides 
the  worlds.  We  know  of  Him,  but  know  Him  not;  nor  shall 
know,  as  you  would  seek  to  know,  until  we  enter  on  the  life  of 
contemplation.  He  is  known  to  us  only  by  His  acts." 

At  the  close  of  Myers's  second  paper  on  Moses,  in  Pr.  XI, 
113,  he  said :  "  At  some  future  date,  should  my  readers  desire 
it,  I  shall  hope  to  record  some  more  of  the  Moses  phenomena," 
but  he  did  not,  although  before  his  death  he  had  nearly  six 
years  to  do  it  in. 

So  far,  you  may  think  the  attention  paid  to  Moses  and 
his  friends  unjustified.  But  they  appear  again  in  some  very 
puzzling  ways. 

Whoever  or  whatever  the  Imperator  group  may  be,  there  is 
this  important  point  regarding  them:  they  were  contrary  to 
Moses's  previous  beliefs,  and  he  fought  and  fought  them  until 
at  last  they  overthrew  his  previous  beliefs.  And  yet,  those 
who  fight  the  obvious  implications  of  these  strange  experi- 
ences, and  the  vastly  more  obvious  implications  of  experiences 
stranger  still  (some  of  which  we  shall  learn  later)  say  that 
these  opinions  contrary  to  his  own,  came  from  the  deepest 
and  best  and  wisest  stratum  of  his  own  nature.  So  they  say 
that  a  similar  overturning  in  a  dream,  of  a  terribly  dangerous 
opinion  of  my  own,  apparently  by  a  discarnate  person  deeply 
interested  in  my  welfare,  was  done  by  myself.  My  guess 
that  all  these  are  enlightened  and  led  by  the  Cosmic  Inflow 
may  be  absurd,  any  other  guess  may  be  absurd,  but  among 
all  possible  absurdities,  can  any  other  be  as  absurd  as  that  the 
agency  that  contradicts  and  overthrows  a  man's  deepest  con- 
victions is  himself? 


Ch.  XXV]       Moses'  Atmosphere  Oppressive  363 

To  go  from  Moses  to  the  other  heteromatists  seems  like 
going  from  a  close  room — an  oriental  close  room — into  the 
open  air;  and  I  say  this  despite  a  very  vivid  recollection,  not 
altogether  canny,  of  Mrs.  Piper  in  trance :  for  I  also  remem- 
ber the  naturalness  of  her  controls,  contrasted  with  the  stilted- 
ness  of  those  of  Moses.  To  many  of  us  a  future  life  in  their 
company  would  be  a  doubtful  blessing;  while  with  Mrs. 
Verrall's  and  Mrs.  Holland's  and  Mrs.  Piper's  people,  at 
least  before  Imperator  and  his  entourage  appeared  among 
them,  it  would  apparently  retain  whatever  of  attractiveness 
life  has  here,  with  immunity  from  many  of  its  ills. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
DRAMATIC  "POSSESSION  "(?)•    EARLY  CASES 

WE  now  leave  for  a  time  the  heteromatic  writing  form  of 
apparent  possession,  and  take  up  the  dramatic  form.  We 
have  records  of  apparent  possession  from  far  back  of  the 
Delphic  priestess  inspired  or  intoxicated  by  her  subterranean 
fumes,  down  to  our  own  time,  and  through  varieties  of  priests 
and  seers  similarly  affected  by  their  favorite  tipples  or  by 
hypnosis  or  auto-suggestion — or  spirits,  if  you  see  fit  to  look 
at  it  in  that  way. 

We  will  begin  with  a  few  cases  in  modern  times  previous 
to  the  records  of  the  S.  P.  R. 

As  I  have  often  said,  there  are  no  abrupt  transitions  in 
Nature. 

Possession  and  telesthesia  insensibly  shade  into  each  other. 
Which  was  Foster's  experiencing  the  pain  in  the  following? 
(Bartlett,  op.  cit.,  146)  : 

From  the  Melbourne  Argus: 

"  I  took  a  slip  of  paper,  and  holding  it  in  my  hand  on  a  card, 
carefully  concealed  from  other  eyes  than  my  own,  wrote,  '  Have 

you  seen ? '  giving  the  name  of  a  cousin  of  mine. ...  I  folded 

the  paper  and  handed  it  towards  him.     As  soon  as  he  touched 
it,  and  before  it  left  my  hand,  he  rejoined,  '  She  says  she  has 

seen  ,  and  what  is  more,  he  is  here  now.     He  is  standing 

behind  your  chair.'  And  after  a  moment's  pause  he  added,  '  He 
was  killed.'  I  said,  '  Yes.  How  ? '  and  was  told  to  point  pri- 
vately to  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  on  a  card  and  the  reply 
would  be  rapped  out.  I  pointed  and  raps  came  at  the  letters 
DROW — at  which  moment  Mr.  Foster,  who  could  not  have 
seen  what  I  was  doing,  put  his  hand  suddenly  on  his  side  and 
exclaimed,  'What  a  pain!  He  was  killed  by  a  fall.  And  I 
have  a  vision  of  water — a  fall  in  water,'  the  truth  being  that 
my  cousin  hurt  his  side  in  plunging  into  the  St.  George's 
Baths,  Liverpool,  and  was  drowned  before  it  was  suspected  that 
he  was  doing  more  than  indulging  in  a  prolonged  dive." 
364 


Ch.  XXVI]    Foster's  Apparent  "  Possession  "  365 

Here  we  reach  apparently  full  possession  (Bartlett,  op.  cit.t 
93): 

From  the  Sacramento  Record,  December  8,  1873 : 

"  Foster  at  one  time  seized  A.'s  hand,  exclaiming,  '  God  bless 
you,  my  dear  boy,  my  son.  I  am  thankful  I  at  last  may  speak 
to  you.  I  want  you  to  know  I  am  your  father,  who  loved  you 
in  life  and  lores  you  still.  I  am  near  to  you;  a  thin  veil  alone 
separates  us.  Good-by.  I  am  your  father,  Abijah  A .' 

"  '  Good  heavens ! '  exclaimed  A.,  '  that  was  my  father's 
name,  his  tone,  his  manner,  his  action.' 

" '  And,'  said  Foster,  '  it  was  a  good  influence ;  he  was  a  man 
of  large  veneration.' " 

I  said  that  the  above  indicated  possession.  But  it  is  not 
possession  to  the  extent  of  complete  expulsion  of  the  original 
consciousness,  as  in  the  trances  of  Home,  Moses,  and  Mrs. 
Piper. 

And  which  is  the  following?  (Bartlett,  op.  cit.,  103)  : 

"  [Letter  to  editor,  written  Nov.  30,  1874] 

"  New  York  Daily  Graphic : . ..  He  told  me  he  saw  the  spirit 
of  an  old  woman  close  to  me,  describing  most  perfectly  my 
grandmother,  and  repeating :  '  Resodeda,  Resodeda  is  here ;  she 
kisses  her  grandson.'  Arising  from  his  chair,  Foster  embraced 
and  kissed  me  in  the  same  peculiar  way  as  my  grandmother  did 
when  alive." 

But  here  the  possession  seems  complete  (Bartlett,  op.  dt.t 
140).  From  the  Melbourne  Daily  Age: 

"  Mr.  Foster. . .  in  answer  to  the  question,  What  he  died  of? 
suddenly  interrupted,  '  Stay,  this  spirit  will  enter  and  possess 
me,'  and  instantaneously  his  whole  body  was  seized  with  quiv- 
ering convulsions,  the  eyes  were  introverted,  the  face  swelled, 
and  the  mouth  and  hands  were  spasmodically  agitated.  Another 
change,  and  there  sat  before  me  the  counterpart  of  the  figure 
of  my  departed  friend,  stricken  down  with  complete  paralysis, 
just  as  he  was  on  his  death-bed.  The  transformation  was  so 
life-like,  if  I  may  use  the  expression,  that  I  fancied  I  could 
detect  the  very  features  and  physiognomical  changes  that 
passed  across  the  visage  of  my  dying  friend.  The  kind  of 
paralysis  was  exactly  represented,  with  the  palsied  hand  ex- 
tended to  me  to  shake,  as  in  the  case  of  the  original.  Mr.  Foster 
recovered  himself  when  I  touched  it,  and  he  said  in  reply 
to  one  of  my  companions  that  he  had  completely  lost  his  own 
identity  during  the  fit,  and  felt  like  waves  of  water  flowing  all 
over  his  body,  from  the  crown  downwards." 


366  Dramatic  "Possession" (?).  Early  Cases  [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Here  is  a  still  more  remarkable  case  from  Stillman  (op.  cit.f 
I,  192).  The  medium  was,  I  believe,  the  one  in  the  hetero- 
matic  writing  already  taken  from  Stillman.  The  possession 
seems  to  have  been  throughout  free  from  trance. 

"I  asked  Harvey  [the  control,  Stillman's  cousin.  H.H.]  if 
he  had  seen  old  Turner,  the  landscape  painter,  since  his  death, 
which  had  taken  place  not  very  long  before.  The  reply  was 
'Yes,'  and  I  then  asked  what  he  was  doing,  the  reply  being  a 
pantomime  of  painting.  I  then  asked  if  Harvey  could  bring 
Turner  there,  to  which  the  reply  was,  '  I  do  not  know ;  I  will 
go  and  see,'  upon  which  Miss  A.  said, '  This  influence  [Harvey's. 
H.H.]  is  going  away — it  is  gone';  and  after  a  short  pause 
added,  '  There  is  another  influence  coming,  in  that  direction,' 
pointing  over  her  left  shoulder.  '  I  don't  like  it,'  and  she  shud- 
dered slightly,  but  presently  sat  up  in  her  chair  with  a  most 
extraordinary  personation  of  the  old  painter  in  manner,  in  the 
look  out  from  under  the  brow  and  the  pose  of  the  head.  It 
was  as  if  the  ghost  of  Turner,  as  I  had  seen  him  at  Griffiths's, 
eat  in  the  chair,  and  it  made  my  flesh  creep  to  the  very  tips 
of  my  fingers,  as  if  a  spirit  sat  before  me.  Miss  A.  exclaimed, 
'  This  influence  has  taken  complete  possession  of  me,  as  none 
of  the  others  did.  I  am  obliged  to  do  what  it  wants  me  to.' 
I  asked  if  Turner  would  write  his  name  for  me,  to  which  she 
replied  by  a  sharp,  decided  negative  sign.  I  then  asked  if  he 
would  give  me  some  advice  about  my  painting,  remembering 
Turner's  kindly  invitation  and  manner  when  I  saw  him.  This 
proposition  was  met  by  the  same  decided  negative,  accompanied 
by  the  fixed  and  sardonic  stare  which  the  girl  had  put  on  at 
the  coming  of  the  new  influence.  This  disconcerted  me,  and 
I  then  explained  to  my  brother  what  had  been  going  on,  as, 
the  questions  being  mental,  he  had  no  clue  to  the  pantomime. 
I  said  that  as  an  influence  which  purported  to  be  Turner  was 
present,  and  refused  to  answer  any  questions,  I  supposed  there 
was  nothing  more  to  be  done. 

"  But  Miss  A.  still  sat  unmoved  and  helpless,  so  we  waited. 
Presently  she  remarked  that  the  influence  wanted  her  to  do 
something  she  knew  not  what,  only  that  she  had  to  get  up  and 
go  across  the  room,  which  she  did  with  the  feeble  step  of  an 
old  man.  She  crossed  the  room  and  took  down  from  the  wall 
a  colored  French  lithograph,  and,  coming  to  me,  laid  it  on  the 
table  before  me,  and  by  gesture  called  my  attention  to  it.  She 
then  went  through  the  pantomime  of  stretching  a  sheet  of 
paper  on  a  drawing-board,  then  that  of  sharpening  a  lead  pencil, 
following  it  up  by  tracing  the  outlines  of  the  subject  in  the 
lithograph.  Then  followed  in  similar  pantomime  the  choosing 
of  a  water-color  pencil,  noting  carefully  the  necessary  fineness 
of  the  point,  and  then  the  washing-in  of  a  drawing,  broadly. 


Ch.  XXVI]         The  Stillman-Turner  Case  367 

Miss  A.  seemed  much  amused  by  all  this,  but  as  she  knew 
nothing  of  drawing  she  understood  nothing  of  it  Then  with 
the  pencil  and  her  pocket  handkerchief  she  began  taking  out  the 
lights,  '  rubbing-out,'  as  the  technical  term  is.  This  seemed  to 
me  so  contrary  to  what  I  conceived  to  be  the  execution  of 
Turner  that  I  interrupted  with  the  question,  '  Do  you  mean  to 
say  that  Turner  rubbed  out  his  lights?'  to  which  she  gave 
the  affirmative  sign.  I  asked  further  if  in  a  drawing  which  I 
then  had  in  my  mind,  the  well-known  '  Llanthony  Abbey,'  the 
central  passage  of  sunlight  and  shadow  through  rain  was  done 
in  that  way,  and  she  again  gave  the  affirmative  reply,  emphatic- 
ally. I  was  so  firmly  convinced  to  the  contrary  that  I  was 
now  persuaded  that  there  was  a  simulation  of  personality,  such 
as  was  generally  the  case  with  the  public  mediums,  and  I 
said  to  my  brother,  who  had  not  heard  any  of  my  questions  [He 
says  above  that  they  were  mental.  H.H.],  that  this  was  another 
humbug,  and  then  repeated  what  had  passed,  saying  that  Turner 
could  not  have  worked  in  that  way. 

"  Six  weeks  later  I  sailed  for  England,  and,  on  arriving  in 
London,  I  went  at  once  to  see  Ruskin,  and  told  him  the  whole 
story.  He  declared  the  contrariness  manifested  by  the  medium 
to  be  entirely  characteristic  of  Turner,  and  had  the  drawing 
in  question  down  for  examination.  We  scrutinized  it  closely, 
and  both  recognized  beyond  dispute  that  the  drawing  had  been 
executed  in  the  way  that  Miss  A.  indicated.  Ruskin  advised 
me  to  send  an  account  of  the  affair  to  the  Cornhill,  which  I  did; 
but  it  was  rejected,  as  might  have  been  expected  in  the  state 
of  public  opinion  at  that  time,  and  I  can  easily  imagine 
Thackeray  putting  it  into  the  basket  in  a  rage. 

"I  offer  no  interpretation  of  the  facts  which  I  have  here 
recorded,  but  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  they  com- 
pleted and  fixed  my  conviction  of  the  existence  of  invisible  and 
independent  intelligences  to  which  the  phenomena  were  due." 

To  me  they  seem  the  nearest  I  have  come  to  a  communica- 
tion of  something  not  known  to  any  earthly  intelligence,  and 
yet  it  may  have  been  so  known. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
PRELIMINARY  REGARDING  THE  S.  P.  R.   SITTINGS 

IT  is  again  one  of  the  classifications  whose  inevitable  arbi- 
trariness I  have  harped  upon  to  illustrate  the  unity  of  things, 
that  now  places  before  us  as  a  separate  category  the  sittings 
of  Mrs.  Piper,  Mrs.  Thompson,  and  a  few  others.  I  prefer 
to  use  the  space  mainly  for  the  two  named,  as  the  best.  Their 
manifestations  were  in  trance,  and  though  the  voice  no  longer 
takes  part,  gestures  still  do  in  a  remarkable  degree. 

Mrs.  Piper's  sittings  for  communications  in  response  to 
ordinary  human  interests,  with  scientific  experiment  only  as 
incidental,  are  reported  in  Pr.  VI,  VIII,  XIII,  XIV, 
XVI,  XXIII,  and  XXIV.  Sittings  with  special  view  to  cross- 
correspondence — and  very  tedious  sittings  most  of  them  are, 
though  productive  in  response  to  close  study — are  reported  in 
XXII  and  XXIV.  Cross-correspondences  are  two  or  more 
"  messages  "  through  different  sensitives  which  are  meaning- 
less taken  separately,  but  significant  when  taken  together. 
Such  cases  seem  to  prove  a  mind  outside  of  the  sensitive's. 
More  of  Mrs.  Piper's  sittings  are  reported  for  the  first  time 
in  Chapters  XXVIII  and  XXXVI  of  the  present  work. 

Mrs.  Thompson's  sittings  are  reported  in  Pr.  XVII  and 
XVIII. 

The  principal  features  that  set  the  S.  P.  K.  sittings  apart 
from  others  are  that  they  are 

(a)  better  reported,  sometimes  stenographically,  and  al- 
ways at  least  by  competent  and  trained  observers  taking  notes, 
or  by  the  medium's  own  script; 

(6)  better  guarded  against  fraud,  though  in  the  light  of 
the  vast  evidence  accumulated  during  the  last  thirty  years, 
bothering  with  the  idea  of  deliberate  fraud,  even  in  the  primi- 
tively authenticated  cases  of  Foster  and  Moses,  seems  silly; 

(c)  with  the  possible  exception  of  my  Chapters  XXVIII 
and  XXXVI,  infinitely  better  edited  and  commented  upon. 


Ch.  XXVII]    Superior  Sitters  and  Controls  369 

Since  1882  these  matters,  previously  neglected,  have  received 
the  closest  attention  of  some  of  the  best  minds  in  both  hemi- 
spheres ; 

(d)  evoked  by  vastly  better  sitters — largely  the  editors 
and  commentators  above  referred  to; 

(e)  emanating  from  vastly  better  alleged  controls — whether 
actual  personalities  or  appropriate  and  suggestive  memories  in 
the  minds  of  survivors.    Latterly  they  profess  to  be  many  of 
the  eminent  sitters  alluded  to — of  course  after  their  deaths. 
Among  the  recent  alleged  controls  have  been  not  only  Moses 
himself,  Myers,  and  Hodgson,  but  also  the  equally  high  in- 
telligences of  "  George  Pelham,"  Gurney,  and  Sidgwick,  who 
had  not  been  habitual  sitters.     There  have  been  from  these 
controls  and  others,  sittings  which  in  number,  variety,  veri- 
similitude, and  dramatic  quality  are  as  much  superior  to  other 
sittings  as  illumination  from  the  sun  is  superior  to  that  from 
the  moon. 

The  mediums,  as  already  indicated,  vary  very  much  in  effec- 
tiveness, just  as  all  machines  for  communication  vary — their 
capacity  is  evolved  to  different  degrees  of  efficiency,  just  as 
all  faculties  are,  and  the  communications  therefore,  and  for 
other  reasons,  vary  in  clearness,  consecutiveness,  and  intelli- 
gibility. 

The  degree  of  success  seems  to  depend  partly  upon  the 
condition  of  the  medium  and  the  atmosphere,  but  much  more 
upon  the  character  of  the  sitter.  The  mediumistic  faculty 
needs  sympathy  and  co-operation.  The  sitter  and  the  medium 
are  a  pair  striving  for  a  result.  If  we  are  studying  what  is 
done  by  pairs  in  racing,  or  tennis,  or  golf,  or  duet-music,  or 
telepathic  communication,  there  is  no  use,  except  for  expert 
study,  in  spending  time  with  pairs  who  do  badly.  From  this 
point  of  view,  in  the  examination  we  are  about  to  make,  we 
may  as  well  confine  our  attention  to  what  comes  to  good 
sitters  from  good  mediums.  But  there  is  also  the  point  of 
view  of  the  man  who  "  wants  to  see  both  sides,"  and  I  shall 
try  to  meet  his  just  requirements. 

In  the  early  days  the  need  of  sympathy  was  held  sympto- 
matic of  fraud.  The  time  for  that  is  past. 

Perhaps  as  a  result  of  the  conditions,  many  of  the  com- 
munications fall  below  the  intelligence  of  the  alleged  spirits 


370     Preliminary  on  the  S.  P.  R.  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

while  they  were  in  the  body;  often  they  contradict  what 
would  be  expected  of  the  spirits;  and  often  they  are  sheer 
nonsense.  All  this  is  no  worse  than  might  reasonably  be 
expected  even  if  the  communications  were  (or  are)  genuine. 

Sir  William  Crookes  says  (Researches,  pp.  84-5)  : 

"  A  third  error  is  that  the  medium  must  select  his  own  circle 
of  friends  and  associates  at  a  seance;  that  these  friends  must 
be  thorough  believers  in  the  truth  of  whatever  doctrine  the 
medium  enunciates;  and  that  conditions  are  imposed  on  any 
person  present  of  an  investigating  turn  of  mind,  which  entirely 
preclude  accurate  observation  and  facilitate  trickery  and  de- 
ception. In  reply  to  this  I  can  state  that ...  I  have  chosen 
my  own  circle  of  friends,  have  introduced  any  hard-headed  un- 
believer whom  I  pleased,  and  have  generally  imposed  my  own 
terms,  which  have  been  carefully  chosen  to  prevent  the  possi- 
bility of  fraud." 

Directly  counter  to  this,  Moses  testifies  (Pr.  IX,  259) : 

"We  had  ventured  on  one  occasion,  contrary  to  direction,  to 
add  to  our  circle  a  strange  member.  Some  trivial  phenomena 
occurred,  but  the  -usual  controlling  spirit  did  not  appear.  When 
next  we  sat,  he  came ;  and  probably  none  of  us  will  easily  forget 
the  sledge-hammer  blows  with  which  he  smote  the  table.  The 
noise  was  distinctly  audible  in  the  room  below,  and  gave  one 
the  idea  that  the  table  would  be  broken  to  pieces.  In  vain  we 
withdrew  from  the  table,  hoping  to  diminish  the  power.  The 
heavy  blows  increased  in  intensity,  and  the  whole  room  shook 
with  their  force.  The  direst  penalties  were  threatened  if  we 
again  interfered  with  the  development  by  bringing  in  new  sit- 
ters. We  have  not  ventured  to  do  so  again ;  and  I  do  not  think 
we  shall  easily  be  persuaded  to  risk  another  similar  objurga- 
tion." 

But  later  we  read  of  several  people  joining  the  circle  at 
different  times  in  peace  and  quietness ! !  Translation  to  the 
spirit  world  (  ?)  does  not  seem  to  make  us  angels  of  consistency 
all  at  once,  though  perhaps  in  Moses's  case,  as  in  so  many 
others,  time  may  have  changed  conditions. 

When  -several  good  witnesses  swear  they  saw  something 
remarkable  done,  the  production  of  a  thousand  other  good 
witnesses  who  saw  it  tried  in  vain  means  little,  and  means 
less  in  proportion  to  the  supposed  difficulty  and  rarity  of  the 
act — unless  they  can  prove  their  experience  the  only  genuine 
experience,  and  the  opposite  experience  the  result  of  fraud 


Ch.  XXVII]    Reports  Usually  Best  Passages  371 

or  misapprehension.  The  fraud  question,  however,  in  connec- 
tion with  most  of  the  phenomena  I  have  bothered  with  or 
shall  bother  with,  is  simply  out  of  date. 

It  follows,  extreme  as  the  statement  will  first  appear,  that 
except  so  far  as  the  negative  sittings  directly  tend  to  explain 
away  the  positive  ones,  they  are  negligible.  Yet  I  wish  to 
present  the  negative  side  as  strongly  as  I  can  without  boring 
you  with  repeated  quotations  of  uninteresting  and  resultless 
matter.  But  I  wish  to  emphasize  the  fact  that,  although  poor 
sittings  are  probably  less  apt  to  be  reported  than  effective  ones, 
they  do  appear  in  the  reports  pretty  often — perhaps  a  tenth  of 
the  total;  and  this  notwithstanding  that  successful  sitters  are 
apt  to  return  often,  while  unsuccessful  ones  are  not. 

I  also  wish  to  emphasize  that  in  some  cases  the  attempts 
to  "  explain  away  "  bear  a  very  fair  aspect  of  success,  though 
candor  compels  me  to  say  that  they  often  seem  to  me  more 
improbable  than  the  flat-footed  spiritistic  hypothesis  which 
I  began  by  scouting,  and  which  I  am  not  yet  ready  to  accept. 

I  wish,  too,  to  be  distinctly  understood  as  admitting  tele- 
pathy from  the  sitter  wherever  that  will  serve,  and  telotero- 
pathy  from  other  incarnate  minds  wherever  there  is  room 
for  it. 

And  finally  I  wish  to  state  that  the  tests  perhaps  most 
ingeniously  devised  and  generally  regarded  as  most  crucial, 
of  which  we  shall  meet  the  details  later — the  reading  after 
death,  through  the  medium,  of  sealed  letters  prepared  by  the 
communicator  before  death,  have  failed  in  the  two  reported 
cases,  and  that  such  reading  does  not,  for  any  reason  that  I 
can  see,  appear  more  difficult  than  other  feats  performed 
by  or  through  the  medium.  This,  however,  I  take  to  be 
mainly  an  argument  against  accounting  for  the  phenomena  by 
telopsis. 

This  test  was  once  regarded  by  a  good  many  as  final  against 
the  survival  of  the  author  of  the  letter.  It  is  certainly  final 
against  his  ability  and  inclination,  if  he  survive,  to  com- 
municate matter  that  from  our  point  of  view  should  be  as 
easy  to  him  as  other  matter  which  he  or  the  medium  does 
communicate,  except  in  the  vital  point  that  the  contents  of 
the  letter  can  be  proved  not  to  be  in  the  mind  of  any  living 
person,  while  of  little  or  nothing  else  in  the  matter  com- 


372     Preliminary  on  the  S.  P.  R.  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

municated  through  the  medium,  can  that  be  proved.  The 
alternatives  then  are:  (I)  If  the  writer  can't  tell  what  he 
did  himself  for  the  express  purpose  of  telling  it  if  he  should 
survive,  he  did  not  survive;  (II)  he  did  survive,  as  shown 
by  many  other  proofs,  but  there  are  insurmountable  obstacles 
to  his  giving  the  proof  in  question.  Of  this  more  later. 

The  circumstances  under  which  the  controls  appear  are 
very  various.  We  have  had  some  indications  of  them  already, 
but  they  will  grow  much  more  distinct  as  we  go  on.  In 
many  of  the  most  important  sittings  there  are  ostensibly 
gathered  around  the  medium  several  "  personalities,"  of  whom 
generally  one  acts  as  spokesman,  or  writer,  for  the  others, 
though  the  others  sometimes  speak  or  write  for  themselves. 
Who  shall  be  the  spokesman  seems  to  be  determined  by  the 
natural  selection  of  some  "  person  "  of  superior  experience  or 
intimacy  with  the  medium.  "  He  "  often  professes  to  repeat 
verbatim,  and  it  is  not  always  possible  to  tell  whether  the 
alleged  communication  is  to  be  taken  as  direct  or  indirect. 

Thus  Mrs.  Piper,  for  the  earlier  part  of  her  mediumship, 
was  generally  controlled  by  an  alleged  French  physician  call- 
ing himself  Dr.  Phinuit,  who  spoke  for  "  everybody,"  but  she 
appeared  gradually  to  come  more  readily  under  the  immediate 
control  of  any  "  personality "  who  wished  to  communicate, 
though  as  Phinuit  gradually  disappeared,  part  of  his  place 
was  inherited  by  George  Pelham  and  also  by  Hector,  pro- 
fessedly one  of  the  Imperator  group  with  whom  we  have 
already  become  acquainted  in  connection  with  Stainton  Moses ; 
and  Imperator  himself  occasionally  took  a  hand. 

Mrs.  Thompson  is  generally  under  the  ostensible  control 
of  her  daughter  Nelly,  who  died  in  infancy,  but  has  been 
growing  up. (?) 

Since  the  deaths  of  Gurney,  Myers,  and  Hodgson,  they  have 
ostensibly  controlled  very  freely,  the  automatic  writings  of 
Mrs.  Verrall,  Mrs.  Holland,  and  Miss  Eawson  being  almost 
dominated  by  them. 

The  sittings,  recorded  but  not  printed  by  the  S.  P.  R., 
are  announced  to  be  largely  incoherent  and  insignificant. 
But  not  a  few  too  intimate  for  publication  are,  for  that  very 
reason,  more  impressive  than  anything  that  has  been  pub- 
lished. Even  from  those  published,  of  course  I  can 


Ch.  XXVII]      Propaganda  versus  Exposition  373 

give  but  fragments;  and  at  best  one  who  has  read  and  re- 
read thousands  of  pages  of  records  of  sittings  and  comments 
thereupon  can  hardly  pick  out  the  few  hundred  pages  most 
worth  boiling  down  for  one  who  has  read  but  little.  The 
difficulties  of  the  task  are  greatly  increased  by  the  editors  and 
commentators  having  more  generally  had  in  mind  their  fellow- 
students  than  the  average  uninitiated  reader. 

There  are  at  least  two  obvious  ways  in  which  this  material 
can  be  presented.  In  Human  Personality  Myers,  who  had  but 
half  of  the  present  accumulation  to  select  from,  strung  his 
on  the  thread  of  his  theories,  and  used  it  in  advocacy  of  them. 
To  do  this,  of  course,  he  had  to  select  here  and  there  without 
regard  to  chronological  sequence. 

I  have  preferred  to  attempt  an  outline  by  approximately 
consecutive  specimens  from  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.  and  a  few  other 
records.  Myers's  method  has  advantages  for  propagandism 
which  this  has  not;  but  this  has  enabled  me  to  present  what 
perhaps  I  may  call  the  Piper  drama — the  appearing,  mani- 
festations, and  disappearing  of  her  principal  "  controls,"  Phi- 
nuit  and  G.  P.,  and  her  relations  with  Myers  and  Hodgson 
living  and  with  their  alleged  personalities  when  they  had 
ceased  to  "  live."  From  this  chronological  presentation,  per- 
haps you  can  better  decide  whether,  in  the  later  manifestations, 
those  personalities  were  mere  memories — or  refrain  from  de- 
ciding. 

My  method  of  presentation  has  also  left  me  absolutely  un- 
trammeled  by  any  theory,  except  what  has  grown  up  during 
the  work  itself.  This  condition  has  probably  enabled  me  to 
present  both  sides  more  fairly  than  I  could  otherwise  have 
done. 

It  is  tantalizing  to  be  able  to  give  only  such  small  scraps 
of  the  reports :  they  must  afford  a  very  inadequate  notion  not 
merely  of  the  variety  of  the  phenomena,  but  of  the  impressions 
pro  and  con.  The  matter  I  had  selected  as  desirable  for  con- 
veying even  the  impression  worth  attempting  here,  was  about 
twice  as  much  as  I  can  give  room. 

It  is  of  course  desirable  that  interested  readers  should  be 
able  to  roam  at  will  through  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.,  and  even  readers 
who  have  not  them  within  reach,  can  practically  do  so  at 
moderate  expense.  A  full  set  up  to  1912  would  cost  well  over 


374    Preliminary  on  the  S.  P.  R.  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

a  hundred  dollars,  but  nearly  all  the  volumes  consist  of  sev- 
eral "  Parts,"  and  these  can  be  bought  separately  in  paper  at 
not  over  a  dollar  and  a  half  each.  The  American  agents  are 
the  W.  B.  Clarke  Company  of  Boston.  If  you  want  fuller  de- 
tails of  any  topic  than  are  given  here,  by  naming  to  the  agents 
the  volume  and  page  cited,  you  will  enable  them  to  send  you 
the  Part.  My  naming  the  Part  as  well  as  the  volume  and  page 
containing  each  citation,  would  be  a  nuisance  to  us  both. 

The  sittings  themselves  soon  become  borous,  but  the  treat- 
ment of  them  by  the  various  editors  is  generally  interesting, 
and  nearly  all  literature  of  a  very  high  order.  As  I  have  re- 
read and  re-read  it  since  making  the  first  draft  of  this  book,  the 
inadequacy  and  injustice  to  the  whole  subject  of  what  I 
can  give  here,  has  been  doubly  borne  in  upon  me,  and  I  should 
be  tempted  to  suppress  it  if  it  were  possible  otherwise  to  urge 
readers  to  the  sources  from  which  I  have  drawn,  if  there  were 
any  chance  that  even  when  so  urged,  those  getting  an  inad- 
equate notion  here  would  seek  the  vastly  better  one  there,  and 
if  (the  reason  perhaps  of  least  worth)  it  were  not  for  features 
on  which  I  have  dwelt  when  my  predecessors  have  not.  In 
case  you  may  care  for  fuller,  and  in  many  ways  vastly  better, 
treatment  of  the  sittings,  let  me  recommend  you,  in  the  order 
given  (not  necessarily  that  of  merit,  but  approximately  that  of 
interest  to  the  lay  reader)  to  the  following  papers  from  which 
I  have  but  briefly  abstracted — Hodgson's  report  in  Part  (not 
Volume)  XXXIII;  James's  in  Part  LVIII,  and  Piddington's 
(on  Mrs.  Thompson)  in  Part  XL VII.  The  editorial  matter 
in  all  these  is  very  full,  and  of  very  high  rank  even  as  literature 
alone.  Perhaps  merely  as  sittings,  the  Junot  series  (the  last 
which  I  abstract)  in  Part  LXI  are  the  most  interesting  of  all. 
The  editorial  matter  there  is  very  good  as  far  as  it  goes,  but 
to  go  very  far  would  have  been  superfluous,  as  there  were  few 
points  not  adequately  treated  by  the  editors  of  sittings  pre- 
viously published.  Next  in  interest  to  most  intelligent  readers 
— perhaps  indeed  greater  than  any  other  part  to  one  who  has 
read  the  first  two  I  have  named,  is  Mrs.  Verrall's  admirable 
account  of  her  own  and  Mrs.  Holland's  automatic  writing, 
which  fills  all  of  Vol.  XX.  This  too  is  of  high  value  as 
literature. 

A  little  patient  practice  will  be  needed  in  reading  the 


Ch.  XXVII]         Peculiarities  of  Reports  375 

records,  partly  because  they  are  reported  in  so  many  ways, 
notes  of  sittings  having  been  kept  by  various  people  in  various 
forms.  I  have  found  it  impracticable  to  reduce  them  to  uni- 
formity. The  words  of  the  "controls"  uttered  or  written 
by  (or  through?)  the  medium,  in  some  cases  are  not  set  off 
by  any  sign.  This  is  often  unfortunate,  especially  where  the 
medium's  utterances  are  jumbled  up  in  the  same  paragraph 
with  those  of  the  sitters  in  parenthesis,  and  of  various  com- 
mentators in  brackets. 
Professor  Newbold  says  (Pr.  XIV,  8) : 

"  The  reader  will  observe  that '  yes '  and  '  no '  are  often  written 
when  no  questions  are  recorded.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that, 
the  writing  being  exceedingly  illegible  and  coming  very  rapidly, 
the  sitter  reads  aloud  with  a  slight  interrogatory  inflection  at 
any  convenient  resting  point,  as  at  the  end  of  a  sheet  or  at  an 
apparent  pause  in  the  sense.  To  this  the  writer  responds  with 
'  yes '  or  '  no,'  to  show  whether  he  is  being  correctly  understood. 
If  these  utterances  are,  as  I  believe  them  to  be,  entirely  dissev- 
ered from  the  normal  consciousness  of  Mrs.  Piper,  they  as  truly 
reveal  to  us  a  new  world  of  mind  as  the  microscope  reveals  a 
new  world  of  matter " 

Moreover,  there  are  not  infrequent  grammatical  errors  that 
divert  the  attention.  I  have  thought  best  not  to  correct  any 
of  them.  Some  may  be  misprints;  some  from  inadequate 
memoranda  or  stenographic  reports ;  some  from  indistinctness 
of  heteromatic  script;  some  may  be  due  to  the  heteromatists 
(though  if  any  occurred  in  the  script  of  the  highly  educated 
ones,  they  were  probably  edited  out) ;  but  I  feel  disposed  to 
take  them  as  slips  of  the  alleged  communicators,  even  when 
they  professed  to  be  such  high  and  mighty  personages  as  the 
Imperator  group.  This  is  especially  the  case  where  those  per- 
sonages tried  thee-ing  and  thou-ing,  and  slipped  up  on  the 
"  number  "  of  their  pronouns  and  verbs.  This  of  course  tends 
to  make  them  out  as  at  least  partly  the  products  of  the  imagi- 
nation of  a  medium  unpractised  in  such  language;  and  it 
does  not  seem  greatly  to  stretch  consistency  to  assume  that 
they  might  be  genuine  personages,  and  their  reported  language 
subjected  to  a  coloring  from  the  channel  through  which  it 
comes. 

Editors  have  often  found  difficulty  in  separating  the  words 
of  different  controls:  they  appear  to  interrupt  each  other, 


376    Preliminary  on  the  S.  P.  R.  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

and  sometimes  there  seems  to  be  a  veritable  struggle  among 
them  for  possession  of  the  medium.  It  is  therefore  not  always 
easy  (or  possible,  for  that  matter)  for  even  the  practised 
reader  to  get  the  meaning  clearly.  I  have  risked  straining 
the  patience  of  such  readers  by  continuing  my  own  interpola- 
tions intended  to  help  the  novice.  I  hope  none  of  them  will 
appear  too  banal.  They  are,  as  hitherto,  in  square  brackets 
and  followed  by  my  initials,  and  should  be  discriminated  from 
other  notes  in  square  brackets  by  sitters  or  other  editors. 

I  realize  that  these  frequent  interruptions  are  apt  to  be- 
come a  nuisance  to  some  readers  whose  sympathy  I  should 
be  very  sorry  to  lose, — especially  to  those  who  are  already 
in  the  habit  of  reading  sittings  and  interpreting  for 
themselves.  But,  to  lay  readers  generally,  for  whom  espe- 
cially I  write,  they  are  apt  to  be  serviceable,  even  if  at  the 
expense  of  some  annoyance.  I  hope  I  have  not  made  the 
reports  of  sittings  more  tedious  than  they  naturally  are,  by 
the  attempted  help  I  have  interjected. 

Like  some  other  writings,  accounts  of  sittings  should  be 
taken  in  moderate  instalments,  especially  if  they  are  read  seri- 
ously, in  order  that  the  mind  may  be  keen  for  all  the  indica- 
tions, for  or  against.  And  after  you  get  through,  if  you  are 
reasonable,  as  of  course  you  are,  you  will  find  it  a  matter  of 
incontrovertible  indications  both  ways. 

Don't  feel  discouraged  by  the  sitting  given  first:  probably 
it  is  given  more  in  detail  and  with  less  editing  into  smooth- 
ness, than  the  later  ones. 

If  you  find  yourself  inclined  to  stop,  don't  before  you 
have  tried  skipping,  and  looked  into  the  Junot  sittings,  which 
are  the  last. 

I  have  intentionally  repeated  a  good  many  of  my  own 
comments,  and  unintentionally  not  a  few,  but  it  hardly  seems 
worth  while  to  fish  them  out,  especially  as  the  reasons  suf- 
ficiently sound,  I  trust,  for  the  deliberate  repetitions,  will 
probably  in  some  degree  hold  good — so  far  as  they  may  be 
good  at  all — for  the  accidental  ones. 

All  the  sittings  published  have,  of  course,  had  editors,  and 
remarks  by  the  editors  are  of  course  frequently  injected  into 
the  reports.  Sometimes  when,  in  the  course  of  a  sitting,  the 
editor  speaks  in  propria  persona,  and  there  seems  danger  of 


Ch.  XXVII]  "Evidential"  Tests  377 

ambiguity,  I  prefix  his  initial  to  the  paragraph.  Keep  this 
in  mind,  or  you  will  occasionally  be  puzzled. 

The  controls  say  that  not  all  of  them  can  communicate 
through  any  known  medium,  and  that  some  can  communicate 
through  some  mediums  but  not  through  others.  Often  one 
of  them  who  claims  that  he  cannot  communicate  through  the 
medium  then  present,  professes  to  make  his  communication  to 
another  "  spirit,"  who  delivers  it  through  the  medium.  Phi- 
nuit,  George  Pelham,  and  Rector  are  the  most  frequent  in- 
termediaries. 

I  want  to  say  at  the  outset  that  if  we  are  to  consider  as 
evidential  of  spiritism  only  facts  not  possibly  known  by  any 
incarnate  intelligence,  the  sittings  do  not  seem  to  me  worth 
taking  into  account.  Not  only  do  the  indications  pro  and  con 
too  nearly  offset  each  other;  but,  as  has  often  been  said,  the 
only  accessible  proof  of  a  statement  is  in  some  incarnate  mind, 
and  all  such  proof  must  open  up  the  suspicion  of  telepathy, 
or  at  the  worst  teloteropathy. 

Therefore  I  give  the  extracts  from  the  records  of  sittings 
not  so  much  for  their  "  evidential "  value  as  for  whatever  in- 
dication they  may  contain  that  the  things  said,  no  matter 
whether  facts  or  falsities,  are  said  by  substantially  the  per- 
sonalities claiming  to  say  them — for  whatever  they  may  show 
of  (a)  the  habits  of  mind  and  turns  of  expression  of  the 
alleged  communicator;  (6)  emotions,  initiative,  response  be- 
yond the  reach  of  telepathy;  and  (c)  growth  in  the  alleged 
communicator's  character  from  the  sittings  of  one  year  to 
those  of  later  years.  The  question  is  whether  these  are  in 
kind  and  degree  sufficiently  identical  with  the  personalities 
alleged.  If  they  are,  the  facts  or  falsities  communicated 
seem  to  me  of  minor  consequence.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
the  personalities  communicating  the  facts  or  falsities  lack  in- 
dividuality and  vraisemblance,  they  may  all  be  summed  up  as 
the  medium  and  the  sitter;  and  the  facts  or  falsities  summed 
up  as  successful  or  unsuccessful  telepsychoses  from  incarnate 
minds. 

What  indications  of  personal  identity  the  records  contain, 
cannot  be  fairly  indicated  in  half  a  dozen  sittings.  Yet,  out- 
side of  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.  and  Myers's  bulky  volumes,  they  have 
been  very  lightly  treated  by  anybody.  Podmore  in  his  big  and 


378    Preliminary  on  the  S.  P.  R.  Sittings    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

important  two-volume  work,  devotes  to  them  less  than  twenty 
pages.  I  shall  give  them  some  hundreds — enough,  I  hope,  to 
give  a  fair  outline  of  the  Piper  drama. 

The  impressions  made  upon  me  by  the  various  phenomena, 
I  have  given  pretty  much  as  they  occurred.  They  often  con- 
tradict each  other  flatly,  but,  as  will  be  seen,  out  of  the  mass 
of  confusion,  some  elements  gradually  preponderated  and 
shaped  themselves  into  a  theory  which  at  last  grew  pretty  firm 
and  distinct,  but  of  course  I  hold  it  only  tentatively.  But  after 
the  revolutions  that  have  come  within  less  than  a  century,  how 
many  opinions  will  it  do  to  hold  in  any  other  way? 

I  for  one  find  agreeable  the  change  from  the  close  over- 
stimulated  atmosphere  of  Moses  into  the  often  prosy  paths 
but  natural  human  interests  usually  brought  before  us  by 
Mrs.  Piper.  Her  controls  generally  profess  to  be  ordinary 
people  seeking  communication  with  friends  they  have  left 
behind.  Whether  she  really  gives  that  communication  or 
not,  she  gives  an  astonishing  semblance  of  it,  and  with  a 
verisimilitude  and  vastness  of  detail  that  place  her  in  a  class 
apart. 

Mrs.  Piper  differs  from  many  of  the  heteromatists  in 
that  her  writing  is  in  trance.  In  the  early  part  of  her 
career  her  vocal  organs  were  used  by  several  controls,  each 
with  a  special  voice  and  enunciation,  but  that  has  gradually 
disappeared,  and  for  many  years  she  has  manifested  only 
by  writing  and  gesture.  No  other  heteromatist's  scripts,  not 
even  Mrs.  Verrall's,  have  been  scrutinized  by  as  many  careful 
and  competent  students  as  Mrs.  Piper's,  and  perhaps  none 
have  impressed  people  as  strongly  with  the  conviction  that 
they  emanate  from  a  life  beyond  ours. 

In  one  sense  they  say  very  little,  and  reiterate  that  little 
ad  nauseam;  but  the  little  is  said  by  so  many  ostensible  per- 
sonalities, and  in  such  a  number  of  different  connections,  as  to 
produce  probably  more  dramatic  variety,  so  far  as  mere  variety 
goes,  than  ever  before  was  expressed  through  a  single  human 
being.  But  what  is  said  contains  nothing  that  could  be 
uttered  only  by  a  soul  suddenly  admitted  to  vast  superhuman 
knowledge,  as  the  old  theories  assumed  the  postcarnate  soul 
to  be.  An  error  in  those  theories,  however,  is  no  argument 
against  the  present  manifestations. 


Ch.  XXVII]    Skipping  Best  for  Some  Readers  379 

So  far  as  regards  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.,  the  cheap  stage  scenery 
and  inflated  conversation  borrowed  from  all  sorts  of  mytho- 
logies, and  attributed  by  most  of  the  early  "  mediums  "  to  the 
life  beyond  earth,  Mrs.  Piper  has  little  use  for,  although  she 
did  descend  a  good  way  into  both  when,  about  midway  in 
her  career,  Stainton  Moses,  postcarnate,  turned  up  with  his 
grandiloquent  friends  Imperator  &  Co.  Mrs.  Piper  describes 
little  scenery,  and  her  people,  while  uttering  many  incoher- 
ences, outside  of  Imperator  &  Co.,  talk  little  coherent  non- 
sense, and  in  their  conversations  with  the  sitters  are  as 
true  to  nature  as  anybody ;  and  this  is  probably  the  strongest 
support  for  the  belief  that  the  communications  are  from 
actual  personalities. 

But  since  the  foregoing  paragraph  was  in  type  Professor 
Xewbold  has  intrusted  to  me  some  records  of  sittings  not  re- 
ported in  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.,  that  call  for  modifications  of  this 
statement  They  will  be  discussed  in  Chapter  XXXVI. 

I  want  finally  to  repeat  again  that  the  sittings  tend  soon 
to  become  borous,  but  I  hope  that  some  readers  who  do  not 
care  to  study  them  may  be  repaid  for  skipping  through  them : 
many  quotations  of  interesting  comment  are  scattered  among 
them,  and  a  general  knowledge  of  them  is  essential  to  under- 
standing anything  that  may  be  worth  while,  if  there  is  any- 
thing worth  while,  in  the  speculations  which  follow  them. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
MRS.  PIPER:   AUTHOR'S  EXPERIENCE 

As  in  Telekinesis  and  Telepathy,  I  began,  for  the  reasons 
there  given,  with  my  own  experience;  for  the  same  reasons, 
I  run  counter  to  chronology  to  present  a  sitting  I  had  with 
Mrs.  Piper  in  1894.  It  was  a  typical  Piper  seance  of  the 
period.  Although  it  was  not  printed  in  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.  be- 
cause I  was  then  too  busy  and  procrastinating  to  revise  the 
copy  which  Hodgson  sent  me,  it  has  some  special  points 
worth  noting,  and  in  general  can  serve  as  a  text  for  ex- 
pounding many  of  the  points  of  mediumism.  One  special 
point  is  that  it  is  one  of  the  sittings  when  Mrs.  Piper  both 
spoke  and  wrote  automatically — before  she  ceased  the  former, 
and  after  she  began  the  latter. 

Mrs.  Piper's  psychic  manifestations  in  an  ordinary  sitting 
are  much  more  complex  than  Foster's  were,  but  so  far  as 
I  know,  she  has  not,  like  him,  given  telekinetic  ones.  In 
fact  telekinesis  appears  for  the  time  to  be  under  a  cloud.  I 
have  read  no  account  of  it  from  an  English  medium  since 
Home  and  Moses,  though  Eusapia  Palladino  still  has  her 
adherents,  of  whom  I  am  one  as  far  as  the  lion's  skin  goes, 
but  of  late  it  seems  to  have  been  shrinking,  and  the  fox's 
to  be  expanding.  This  slowing  up  in  telekinetic  phenomena, 
however,  is  probably  nothing  but  an  illustration  of  the  law 
of  the  rhythm  of  motion.  But  to  return  to  Mrs.  Piper  and 
Foster.  While  the  impressions  of  both  were  obviously  due 
to  some  sensibility  not  yet  evolved  in  people  generally,  Mrs. 
Piper,  while  appearing  a  person  much  more  susceptible  to 
spiritual  impressions  (whatever  that  may  mean),  in  her  own 
personality  had,  in  a  sense,  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter. 
Foster  expressed  himself,  giving  an  account  of  what  he  saw 
and  felt,  while  she  abolished  herself,  appearing  to  move  her 
own  personality  from  her  body,  giving  place  to  other  apparent 
personalities  who  expressed  themselves  through  her  vocal 


Ch.  XXVIII]    Genuineness.    Modus  Operandi  381 

organs,  gestures,  and  writing.  What  they  did,  did  not  seem 
to  pass  through  her  consciousness,  and  the  apparent  passage 
of  their  consciousnesses  through  her  organism  involved  some 
disturbance  in  it.  Mrs.  Piper  was  in  a  trance,  the  passage 
of  the  communications  distorting  her  face,  changing  her 
voice,  and  seeming  to  affect  her  whole  being.  Foster,  on  the 
contrary,  appeared  as  wide  awake,  intelligent,  and  cheerful 
as  people  generally  are  in  ordinary  conversation.  He  re- 
marked, after  perhaps  an  hour  or  an  hour  and  a  half,  that 
he  was  feeling  a  little  tired.  Mrs.  Piper,  on  coming  out 
of  the  trance  after  perhaps  an  hour,  was  somewhat  exhausted. 
This,  however,  was  not  the  case  some  years  later,  as  will 
appear. 

Mrs.  Piper  did  not  know  who  I  was,  unless  Hodgson  had 
told  her,  and  I  am  confident  he  had  not.  There  was  a  good 
chance  for  her  to  read  about  me  from  his  mind,  as  he  knew 
me  well,  but  she  read  next  to  nothing  that  he  knew! 

Before  we  began,  Hodgson  placed  some  sheets  of  paper 
and  pencils  on  a  small  table  within  reach  of  Mrs.  Piper, 
and  others  on  the  mantel  east  of  the  table  for  his  own 
memoranda.  Mrs.  Piper  and  I  sat  facing  each  other  on 
the  west  side  of  the  table.  Hodgson  moved  to  and  fro 
between  the  table  and  the  mantel. 

She  did  not  hold  my  hand.  Early  in  her  career,  as  re- 
corded in  many  places,  she  seems  to  have  held  her  sitter's 
hands  through  the  whole  stance,  but  gradually  she  came 
not  to  touch  the  sitter  at  all.  The  change  appears  to  have 
come  some  time  between  '89  and  '96.  When  that  change 
took  place,  the  suggestions  of  "  muscle  reading  "  in  her  case, 
made  by  Mr.  Podmore  and  others,  were  disposed  of. 

In  the  early  reports  are  also  several  allusions  to  the  seance 
room  being  darkened.  That,  too,  had  become  outgrown 
before  my  sitting,  and  with  it,  of  course,  the  deductions  of 
fraud  naturally  drawn  from  it. 

After  we  had  been  seated  a  minute  or  two,  Mrs.  Piper's 
eyeballs  rolled  upward,  her  face  became  slightly  convulsed, 
and  she  began  talking  in  a  rough  voice  not  her  own.  As 
I  remember,  the  voice  at  first  affected  me  as  if  it  were  coming 
from  a  statue,  but  I  soon  got  used  to  it  She  was  apparently 


382          Mrs.  Piper:  Author's  Experience    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

"  under  the  control "  of  Phinuit,  an  alleged  French  physician, 
with  whom  readers  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Eesearch  are  well  acquainted,  and  whom  I  will  later 
introduce  more  at  length  to  others. 

At  times  there  seemed  to  be  changes  of  control  not  noted 
in  the  report.  I  attempt  to  note  such,  and  have  essayed  a 
few  other  incidental  improvements.  These  notes  are  some- 
times interpolated  in  square  brackets,  with  my  initials,  but 
often  in  the  separate  paragraphs  and  in  the  larger  type  of 
the  author's  usual  part  of  the  book. 

Below  are  given  Hodgson's  notes  of  what  was  said,  and 
exact  transcripts  of  what  was  written.  The  reader  new 
to  the  subject  should  know  that  alleged  communications 
through  alleged  mediums  generally  come  with  apparent  diffi- 
culty— a  sort  of  stammering  or  feeling  for  words,  and  con- 
siderable confusion.  Literal  reproductions,  despite  such  in- 
serted elucidations  as  may  be  practical,  are  not  very  smooth 
reading.  The  confusion  is  attributed  by  some  to  the  medium's 
delays  in  "  fishing "  for  intimations  from  sitters ;  by  others 
to  difficulties  inherent  in  the  case,  especially  with  inexperi- 
enced controls. 

All  these  elements  of  confusion  might  suggest  to  one  read- 
ing for  the  first  time  well  annotated  notes  of  a  sitting,  that 
he  is  examining  a  photograph  of  chaos  and  old  night.  As 
I  have  already  cautioned,  patience  is  needed  not  only  for 
understanding  the  notes,  but  for  estimating  them  as  evidence. 

Don't  let  the  difficulty  of  the  following  sitting  discourage 
you  regarding  the  later  ones.  They  are  apparently  much 
more  freely  "  edited,"  and  are  much  easier  reading. 

Sitting  of  April  8,  1894 
Present,  Richard  Hodgson,  Henry  Holt.     Notes  by  Hodgson. 

"  Phinuit  speaking.  [See  Note  1,  at  end  of  sitting,  p.  390.] 
*  Came  all  the  way  from  spirit  to  see  you.  Want  to  tell  you  some- 
thing about  yourself.  That  gentleman  [referring  to  Sitter]  has 
spirits  around  him  all  the  time.  He  don't  believe  it,  but  he's 
a  medium.'" 

Later  indications  tend  to  verify  this,  but  I  have  not  tried 
to  increase  them :  I  have  been  too  busy,  and  have  wanted  to 
keep  a  level  head — as  far  as  I  can. 


Ch.  XXVIII]     Friend's  Troubles  Reported    .  383 

"  Sitter. — '  You  don't  know  me,  do  you  ? '  Ph. — '  I  have  never 
met  you  before.'  G.  P.  [breaking  in] — '  Awful  scrape  over  here. 
Want  you  to  help  me  out.  A.  [assumed  initial]  is  in  a  dan- 
gerous condition.'  Ph.  [explaining]  '  G.  P.  wants  to  speak  to 
you.  He  knows  you.' " 

G.  P.  is  the  "George  Pelham "  well  known  to  readers 
of  the  Pr.  S.  P.  R.,  whom  I  will  more  fully  introduce 
to  others  later.  When  living  he  was  a  friend  of  mine  as  well 
as  of  Hodgson,  and  of  my  friend  indicated  by  the  pseudo 
initial  A. 

"S.    'All  right.'" 

Here  G.  P.  "  assumed  control  "  of  the  medium — so  Hodg- 
son's notes  say,  but  possibly  "  Phinuit "  reported  for  him. 
I  cannot  remember  now  whether  there  was  a  change  of  voice. 

"G.  P.— 'I'd  like  to  know  where  Mabel  is,  and  who  the 
dickens  is  that?  Do  you  know  what  I  mean  I'  S.— 'Mabel? 
No.'  G.  P. — '  A.'s  in  a  critical  state.  He's  not  himself  now. 
He's  terribly  depressed.'  S. — '  Can  you  tell  anything  [more] 
about  AJ '  G.  P.—'  Friend  of  yours  in  body.*  S.— '  Of  Hodg- 
son ? '  [This  question  and  the  following  seem  to  have  been  mild 
"tests":  I  knew  the  man  well.  H.H.]  G.  P.— 'Yes.'  S.— 
'  Did  I  ever  know  him  ? '  G.  P. — '  Yes  you  knew  him  very  well. 
You're  connected  with  him.'  S. — '  Through  whom  ? '  G.  P. — 
'Do  you  know  any  B.?'  [assumed  initial.  H.H.]  S.— 
'Are  A.  and  I  connected  through  B.?'  G.  P.— 'Write  to  B. 
and  he'll  tell  you  all  about  it' "  [See  Note  2.] 

It  turned  out  later  that  A.  actually  was  low  in  his  mind, 
and  that  B.,  whom  nobody  present  knew,  was  trying  to  get 
him  diverting  occupation.  This  was  found,  too,  to  be  a  case 
of  cross-correspondence. 

None  of  these  circumstances  were  known  to  anybody  pres- 
ent, but  they  were  known  to  other  minds  "  in  the  body,"  and 
hence  the  medium's  utterance  of  them  is  open  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  teloteropathy.  Similar  instances  are  not  rare. 

"  G.  P.  [apparently :  notes  are  uncertain]  continued. 
'  Somebody  wants  to  come  in  here.  There's  a  lady  with  you 
[natural,  but  probably  I  willed  a  change  of  subject.  The 
mediums  generally  respond  promptly  to  such  willing.]  Go  on 
writing,  it  will  help  you.'  [This  may  be  taken  to  have  referred 
to  some  literary  work  on  which  I  was  engaged.]  G.  P. — '  You're 
going  away.  Don't  go  to  sleep.  Wake  up  and  talk  to  me. 


384          Mrs.  Piper:  Author's  Experience    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

[Repeated  in  two  or  three  ways.]  Au  revoir!  I'll  see  you 
later.' " 

Here  Mrs.  Piper's  right  hand  began  reaching  and  grasping, 
and  Hodgson  put  a  pencil  in  it.  She  wrote  continuously  in 
a  very  large  sprawling,  irregular  hand.  Among  other  pas- 
sages were  those  given  below.  The  omitted  ones  are  con- 
fused. My  part  of  the  dialogue  was  probably  (it  was  nearly 
eighteen  years  before  this  writing)  put  by  Hodgson  on  each 
sheet  as  the  medium  went  to  the  next,  and  the  whole  revised 
by  me  in  the  typewritten  copy  which  he  sent.  Before  going  to 
press  I  paragraph  and  punctuate  a  little,  though  at  danger  of 
forcing  intelligibility.  The  explanatory  or  suggestive  com- 
ments of  Hodgson  or  myself  are  in  rectangular  brackets, 
mainly  from  notes  made  at  the  time. 

At  the  risk  of  discouraging  you,  and  the  certainty  of  pre- 
senting the  material  of  the  sittings  in  a  disadvantageous  form, 
I  have  concluded  to  let  it  stand  with  all  its  obscurities  and 
eccentricities,  edited  only  by  comment.  The  S.  P.  R.  reports 
are  generally  selections  with  the  mold  marks  smoothed  away, 
but  you  may  care  for  a  specimen  of  the  unmitigated  thing,  even 
at  the  cost  of  extra  hard  reading. 

"  G.  P.—'  And  how  are  you?  G.  P.  G.  P.  [signature  repeated] 
I  am  not  dead.  How  are  you  H.?  [evidently  referring  to  me, 
whose  initial  Mrs.  Piper  did  not  know.]  I  am  glad  to  see  him. 
Come  and  speak.  Watson  help  those  fingers.  [Reference  to 
Watson  (unknown)  suggests  similarity  of  sound  to  Hodgson — 
Medium's  fingers  cramped.]  Too  bad  about  A.  I  am  sorry  for 
him.  I  have  however  [been]  a  help  to  him.  I  am  here. 

Carlton   [unknown]   is  a .     I  see  you     H.   [Sitter]   speak 

to  me.'  S.— '  Can  you  hear  well? '  G.  P.—'  Not  clearly  H.  I'll 
get  in  stronger  in  a  moment.  All  O.K.  H.  we  will  be  O.K. 

in  a  moment how  is  W ? '   [A  living  acquaintance  of 

G.  P.  and  myself,  but  seldom  in  my  mind,  certainly  not  then, 
but  whom  G.  P.  in  the  flesh  or  spirit,  would  very  naturally  ask 
about.  He  was  not  known  to  Mrs.  Piper  or  Hodgson.  H.H.] 
S.— '  First-rate,  I  think.'  G.  P.—'  Good.  Can't  I  help  him  don't 
you  think  ?  How  are  you  getting  on  with  your  writing  old  man  ? 
Can't  I  help  you?'" 

Apparently  referring  to  my  literary  work  aforesaid.  This 
desire  to  help  is  constantly  manifested  by  G.  P.,  and  is, 
on  the  whole,  more  characteristic  of  those  in  the  alleged 
new  life — certainly  of  G.  P. — than  in  this  life. 


Ch.  XXVIII]    G.  P.  Criticises  Remote  Conversation      385 

"G.  P.— 'I  think  he  is  going  across  water.'  S.— 'Do  you 
mean  I  am?'  G.  P.—' No  F.  J.  [a  common  friend  not  in  my 
mind  at  the  time]  [undeciph.l .'  S. — 'Will  you  answer  me  a 
question? '  G.  P.—'  Yes  I  should  be  pleased.'  S.— '  Will  you  tell 
me  what  you  think  of  that  talk  last  night?'  [A  controversial 
talk  on  philosophic  subjects  at  the  Century  Club  table,  as  I 
remember,  in  which  Hodgson  and  I  had  participated.]  G.  P. — 
'  Nonsense.'  [Possibly  medium  telepathically  gave  my  own  im- 
pression. The  hand  motioned  to  me  not  to  speak,  and  the 
written  answers  anticipated  what  I  thought  of  saying.]  G.  P. 
— '  I  know  what  you  would  ask,  so  will,  yes  I.  Baby  nonsense 
or  talk  this  is  my  well.'  S.— '  It  made  me  tired.'  G.  P.—'  So 
it  does  me  and  it  is  rubbish.  Rubbish  don't  bother  your  clear 
brain  about  such  trash ...  if  it  moves  at ...  thanks  [probably 
for  assistance  with  pencil]  ...  if  it  moves  at  all  it  will  only 

talk  baby  talk ...  yes  tell  him  he  goes  to  B [unrecognized 

now]  and  hears  nonsense.'  H. — '  Now  tell  him.'  S. — '  She 
reads  my  mind  like  a  book'  [referring  to  medium].  G.  P. — 
'  Not  out  of  your  mind  old  chap  you  mistake  it  concerns  E.  G. 
and  yours  truly.' 

"  S.— [to  Hodgson]  '  Do  you  know  who  E.  G.  is? '  [Writing 
resumed.]  G.  P.—'  Perfectly.  Oh,  yes,  Edmund  Gurney.  He 
was  there  and  tried  to  get...  (when  was  it?)  the  impression 
where  you  dined  where  D.?'  S. — 'Dined?'  [Referring  to 
occasion  of  aforesaid  talk.]  G.  P.—' Yes.  Yes.'  S.— 'You 
think  it  was  nonsense?'  G.  P.—' Exactly.  Rightly  named, 
yes.  This  is  what  I  am  trying  to  tell  you  my  good  friend: 
your  clear  brain  ought  to  clear  up  such  nonsense.'  S. — 
[or  possibly  Hodgson]  '  But  you  held  the  mind-stuff  theory 
yourself.'  G.  P.—' Well,  mind  stuff  theory  is  all  right  when 
put  on  a  clear  basis ...  no ...  but  I  want  to  keep  you  fellows 
on  the  right  track,  you  certainly  understand  me  very  well 
considering  you  know  me  so  little  in  my  present  state . . .  yes . . . 
very . . .  perfectly  only  I  find  it  a  little  difficult  to  express  my 
thoughts  through  this  protoplasm.  [Note  3.1  Exactly . . .  yes . . . 
evolution . . .  yes . . .'  S.— '  What  can  you  tell  me  about  A.  ? '  G. 
P.—'  All  about  him.'  S.—' Are  you  troubled  about  him  ?'  G.  P. 
— '  Not  exactly  troubled,  yet  I  am  afraid  he  has  a  mood  of  de- 
pression at  the  present  time  which  is  not  entirely  satisfactory, 
think  so,  H.?...What  about  your  work?  are  you  clearing  up 
weather  any  maters  [matters?]  and  how  about  cosmical  weather. 
[This  was  on  G.  P.'s  mind  especially  in  conection  with  Hodgson 
who  was  present,  but  I  don't  know  that  he  had  ever  discussed  it 
with  me]  . . .  Philosophy.'  [Topics  I  was  working  on.]  S. — 
'  Can  you  tell  me  my  name  ? '  G.  P. — '  Yes,  I  will  surprise,  I 
will  surprise  you  in  a  moment  by  telling  you  old  chap  just  who 
you  are.' " 

This  illustrates  one  of  the  most  perplexing  and  frequent 


386          Mrs.  Piper:  Author's  Experience    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

features  of  mediumistic  communications.  If  the  medium 
was  simply  reading  my  mind,  why  shouldn't  she  promptly 
read  so  clear  and  simple  a  thing  as  my  own  name,  especially 
as,  on  the  telepathic  hypothesis,  she  was  reading  much  foggier 
and  more  complex  things?  Her  not  doing  so,  and  number- 
less similar  cases,  make  very  strongly  against  the  telepathic 
hypothesis.  But  on  the  spiritistic  hypothesis,  why  should 
my  old  friend  delay  giving  my  name,  and  end  without  giving 
it  at  all?  When  at  last  it  was  given  (see  below)  it  was  by 
my  ostensible  remote  cousin,  who  never  saw  me.  Still  the 
surname  was  his  own. 

"  G.  P.  [continuing] — '  I  am  also  [  ?]  talking  baby  talk . . . 
yes . . .  what  about  the  one  and  the  many,  the  many  and  the  one. 
[Same  true  as  regards  "  cosmical  weather."  See  above]  . . .  yes, 
I  will  here... do  you  believe  in  telepathy?  A  AUK  [substi- 
tuted letters,  harking  back  to  A.'s  troubles.]  Yes  . . .  and  will  be 
the  instigator,  hear  you  me?  Where  is  [undeciph.]  Verm  [?] 
yes . . .  yes . . .  tell  me  I  must  clear  up  these  things  H.  I  know. 
Give  me  time  and  I'll  explain  all,  don't  worry  me,  do  you . . . 
D ...  e  too  bad.' " 

The  writing  here  became  very  hurried  and  confused,  appar- 
ently from  the  attempted  intrusion  of  my  young  cousin, 
Albert,  who  had  lately  been  drowned,  and  who  now  seemed 
to  appear  and  want  to  communicate. 

"  G.  P.  [apparently  to  my  cousin]. — Til  tell  him...  yes  in 
a  moment,  did  you ...  oh,  I  can't  hear  you  [apparently  a  child 
of  mine  breaks  in  here  and  is  addressed  by  G.  P.]  well  dear, 
come  along . . .  Papa . . .  who  is  Roy  [  ?]  Ray  yes ...  all ...  yes 
. . .  but  there  is  a  child  here '  [I  had  lost  children,  and  willed 
the  medium  to  stop  impersonating  them,  and  she  left  the  sub- 
ject. Note  4].  G.  P. — 'and  a  young  Hall  [effort,  as  appears 
later,  for  Holt]  who  passed  out  of  [the  body?]  by  drowning 
[My  cousin.  I  never  saw  him]  the  young  man  is,  he  died,  as 
you  term  it,  by  drowning,  and  his  name  is  Alfred'  [wrong,  but 
corrected  later.]  S.— 'What's  his  other  name?'  G.  P.— 'Am 
telling  you  can't  you  wait?  Haccket.  G.  [or  J.]  Alfred... 
what . . .  Hackett ...  yes  ...  all  I  hear ...  he  ...  yes  and  he  knew 
him  very  well.'  S.— '  The  name  Alfred  is  a  mistake.'  G.  P.— 
'  Not  a  mistake,  not  in  the  least.  Don't  you  recall  Alfred?  He 
knew  you  years  ago  perfectly  and  John  also,  he  was  the  one 
who  was  with  him.' " 

This  looks  like  an  echo  of  the  prominence  in  the  mind 
of  most  Holts  of  the  name  of  Sir  John,  the  English  chief 


Ch.  XXVIII]    Sitter's  Drowned  Cousin  Manifested        387 

justice  in  the  seventeenth  century,  from  whom  not  a  few 
of  the  Americans  of  the  name  claim  to  be  descended,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  he  had  no  children. 

"8.— 'I  don't  know  him.'  G.  P.— 'You  do  know  him... 
this  . . .  yes ...  it  is  so  and  right  ask  John  [unrecognized]  he 
is ...  brother  [Albert  had  no  brother  John]  [  ?]  in  earth . . . 

r. . .  this  is  important.  Henry '  [Sitter's  Christian  name.  G. 
never  used  it  in  life.]  S. — '  Are  you  sure  Alfred  is  the 
name  ? '  G.  P. — '  I  am  not  sure  but  I  think  it  is  very  nearly 
right  as  I  hear  it.  HA...H  O  W  I  know,  don't  mind  me.' 
S. — '  I  am  listening  [Reading  probably  meant]  attentively.' 
G.  P.—'  You  don't  quite  believe  me,  that  is  that  I  am  I  Yes.  yet 
I  am  all  that  remains  of  yours  truly  G.  P.  H  on  Horn  H  o  r  t  e 
on  [Farther  efforts  towards  sitter's  name.]  (S.  Horton?)  no 
leave . . .  H  o  n  . . .  I  want . . .  please  don't  worry  him  [apparently 
alluding  to  cousin]  he  is  in  a  dream  keep  quiet  and  let  him  see 
where  he  is ...  yes  . . .  Ard  [  ?]  for  him . . .  yes  I  did . . .  Alfred  J 
[or  G  ?]  are  you  talking  H  . . .  Haris . . .  what . . .  Harry  [Sitter's 
usual  name  with  intimates,  but  G.  P.  never  used  it  in  life]  . . . 
keep  clear  if  you  can  and  I'll  help  Hone.'  [Apparently  my 
cousin  shoves  G.  P.  aside  and  takes  control  of  the  medium.] 
A. — '  Do  speak  speak  to  me  now . . .  not  11.'  S. — '  Yes  you  were 
drowned.'  A. — '  You  know  me.  Do,  oh  do  tell  my  mother  to 
cheer  up  and  don't  worry . . .  she . . .  yes . . .  Holt  [Correct  at 
last]...  Yes.'" 

Some  people  are  so  opposed  to  the  spiritistic  hypothesis, 
or  perhaps  I  should  say  to  any  hypothesis  but  fraud,  that  they 
attribute  to  it  this  "  feeling  for  "  names  which  is  very  frequent 
among  mediums.  I  can't  see  any  indication  that  it  may  not 
be  a  perfectly  natural  process,  on  the  hypothesis  of  limited 
power  both  to  apprehend  and  to  communicate  in  either 
"  spirit "  or  medium,  or  of  obstacles  to  both,  which  the  means 
are  not  fitted  readily  to  overcome. 

"  G.  P.  [apparently]—'  and  you  must  speak  to  him,  you  heard 
. . .  you . . .  S. — '  Where  is  his  mother  ? '  A.  [apparently] — 
'  In  the  South . . .  yes  . . .'  [she  had  been  there  lately,  but  had 
returned.  I  knew  the  first  fact,  and  I  think  I  knew  the  sec- 
ond.] S. — 'Are  you  sure  she's  in  the  South?'  A. — 'Yes  she 
is  there  now.'  [Note  5.]  S.— '  Does  she  live  there?'  A  — 
'  No,  not  her  home.'  [Correct.]  '  Alfred  now  you  must  know, 
do,  oh  do  please.  [See  Note  6.]  I  ask  of  you  it  was.  the  great- 
est sorrow  to  her . . .  yes . . .  [undeciph.]  and  Uncle  Will  [not 
recognized.  See  below  regarding  identifying  mother.]  will 
know.'  S.— '  Uncle  Will  ? '  A.—'  W  not  William  not ...  No ... 
will  know.'  S.— 'Will  know?'  A.—' Yes,  please  tell  her  for 


388          Mrs.  Piper:  Author's  Experience    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

me.  [Several  pencils  rejected,— on  ground,  apparently,  that 
they  had  been  handled  by  other  persons.  Writing  resumed.] 
Thanks . . .  don't  let  anybody  touch  those  any  more ...  no ... 
thanks.'  S.— '  Won't  it  be  distressing  if  I  tell  his  mother  ? ' 
A. — '  Tell  her.  But  I  shall  be  there  before  you  are,  and  I  will 
help  her  to  bear  it.  Albert  was  my  name — rightly  spelt  [for 
the  first  time]  but  she  called  me  Al . . .  yes  and  Allie.'  " 

The  medium  stopped  writing,  and  Phinuit  took  control 
again,  speaking: 

"  P. — '  There's  a  great  deal  more  thought  here  than's  said. 
Dp  you  sleep  pretty  well?  [I  did  not.]  You  sit  in  chair 
with  arms,  and  write  on  bits  of  paper  [True:  on  pad.] 
Eggs  are  very  good  for  you.'  S.— '  All  of  the  egg?'  [I  used 
the  white  at  breakfast  daily.]  P. — '  You  take  the  white  of  it 
very  nicely.'  [Correct.]  S. — '  You  are  reading  my  mind.  How 
about  fruit  ? '  P. — '  Fruit's  good.'  [It  was  very  bad  for  me, 
though  I  persisted  in  it  from  mistaken  advice.  Phinuit  appears 
to  have  telepathically  received  my  false  impression.]  S. — 
'  These  are  only  vague  generalities.'  P. — '  Well,  that's  specific 
enough.  Do  you  want  me  to  tell  you  the  color  of  your  grand- 
father's cat's  tail  ? '  [Sitter  asks  about  wines,  mentioning 
names. — Phinuit  said  he  didn't  know  names  of  places. — Sitter 
speaks  of  white  wines,  etc.,  and  Khine  wines.]  S. — '  Not  [good] 
for  me? '  P. — '  White  wines  good — acid.  Sweet  wines  not  good. 
[Correct.]  You  taste  oranges  when  you  eat  them.  They  come 
up  in  your  throat.'" 

I  ate  them  habitually  at  breakfast.  This  and  the  arm- 
chair and  writing  are  wonderful  bits  of  telepathy — or  some- 
thing else. 

"S.— 'If  I  don't  eat  fruit,  I'll  get  lithemia.'  P.— 'Take 
potatoes.'  S. — '  Disagreeing  with  the  faculty.'  P. — '  Grated 
potatoes  beaten  with  milk.  Something  the  matter  with  liver? ' 
S. — <  Now  No.'  [Sitter  had  taken  blue  pill  the  night  before.] 
P. — 'There's  no  disease  in  your  liver.'"  [Correct,  Note  7]. 

G.  P.  seems  to  return. 

"  G.  P. — '  He  seems  to  be  very  anxious  H.  [apparently  referring 
to  Albert]  and  will  say...  Oh!  Here  comes  a  military  man 
with  epaulets  on  his  shoulders  and  had  a  bullet  wound  in  his 
head... too  bad'  [see  below].  S. — 'But  George  people  don't 
wear  epaulets  on  their  knees.'  P.—' On  knees?  Who  said 
knees? '  S.— '  You're  getting  tautological.'  G.  P.—'  Not  in  the 
least  H.  but  I  am  as  in  a  dream.  Shall  I  be  more  philosoph- 
ical?' S.— 'Oh  no!  But  be  like  yourself.'  G.  P.— 'But  you 
seem  not  like  yourself  any  more  than  I,  I  don't  know  why. 


Ch.  XXVIII]     Errors  Mixed  with  Truths  389 

Perhaps  you  can  explain  Why  Why  Why.  Yes.  ..yea.  ..his 
son  has  been  speaking  now  to  me  [apparently  a  repetition  of 
why  recalled  to  Sitter's  mind  a  similar  habit  of  repeating 
"Why?  Why?  Why?"  in  Sitter's  living  little  son,  and  the  im- 
pression went  over  telepathically  into  the  medium,  leading  to 
a  confusion  of  my  living  son  with  the  drowned  cousin]  . . .  yea 
he  wants  to  have  Helen  know  where  he  is.  El  liza . . .  Ellen 
[no  such  person  recognized :  not  his  mother's  name.]  . . .  yes  in 
the  body  ? '  S .— '  Where  is  she  now  ? '  G.  P.—'  In  the  South 
I  hear.  Do  speak.'  S.— 'What  color  was  the  military  suit?' 
G.  P.—'  It  was  Red.' " 

This  is  suggestive.  I  associate  my  cousin  Albert,  father 
of  the  drowned  boy,  with  visits  in  childhood  to  my  grand- 
father's, and  one  of  the  conspicuous  recollections  of  those  visits 
is  a  young  cousin  in  a  much-too-big  red  military  coat  that 
one  of  the  elders  used  to  wear  at  "  general  trainin'."  But 
the  bullet  hole  is  a  mystery.  The  "  grandpere  aux  Franqais  " 
in  my  Foster  sitting  is  said  to  have  been  a  general,  but  he  was 
not  of  that  family,  and  I  never  looked  him  up. 

"  G.  P. — '  Now  you  must  speak  I  cannot  keep  him  up  and  seem 
my  natural  self,  not  for  {'.}  him... there  was  [is?]  a  sister 
Margaret . . .  [No  sister.  H.H.]  Al . . .  I  declare  you  must 
speak  . . .  dazed . . .  why  ...Hou  Hou  Hor  II  or  Ho  a.' 
S. — '  It  would  be  unfortunate  to  add  an  x,  George.'  G.  P. — '  No 
sarcasm  needed.'  S. — '  I  don't  mean  it  as  sarcasm.'  G.  P. — 
'  Thanks.  Thanks,  no  I  should  must  confess  I  should  not  treat 
you  thus,  not  much,  too  bad,  help  the  poor  fellow  will  you  H. 
. . .  you  can  indeed.  Where  am ...  yes  trust  me  as  you  used . . . 
did  in  years  gone  by.  I  look ...  yes ...  tell  father  I  have  ex- 
plained all ...  will  explain  and  it  will  be  clear  to ...  We '" 

Possibly  Albert  had  resumed  "control,"  though  this  may 
have  been  a  reference  by  G.  P.  to  his  own  father,  with 
whom  I  had  always  been  more  intimate  than  with  G.  P. 
himself. 

"G.  P.-<  Where  is  H-s?'  S.— <H-s?'  G.  P.— 'Yes.'  [It 
happened  that  the  sitter  had  been  thinking  specially  of  H — s  the 
day  before.]  G.  P.—'  Tell  him  W.  [H— s's  deceased  daughter]  is 

really  not  dead,  and  is  with  H.  a  great  deal . . .  yes . . .  H ' 

S.— '  What  HJ '  [For  some  reason,  probably  the  indistinctness 
of  the  writing,  the  name  does  not  seem  to  have  been  clear  at 
the  moment,  though  it  was  later  recognized.]  G.  P. — '  In  the 
body . . .  yes . . .  yes . . .  and  you  remember  him  or  I  do.  Ask  her 
father  and  the  message  will  [undeciph. — "be  taken" — see  be- 
low.] Frank.  [Possibly  a  dear  friend  of  Sitter,  wishing  to 


390          Mrs.  Piper:  Author's  Experience    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

communicate,  but  too  late  for  the  medium's  psychokinetic  power. 
[Note  8]  ...  yes . . .  what  [undeciph.]  my  thinking  now ...  be 
taken  . . .  little  mixed . . .  who  is  Stead  [Perhaps  the  well  known 
W.  T.  Stead,  who  was  then  visiting  mediums]  ...  no  all  right . . . 
do  you  know  A.  [undeciph.]  . . .  yes  there  it  is ...  A 1  bert  H — 
J  H— A  J  H— I  am  going.' » 

The  writing  ends  abruptly,  and  the  medium  wakes. 

I  make  no  apology  for  having  treated  the  apparent  per- 
sonalities at  one  moment  as  if  they  were  simply  human  beings 
in  a  new  stage  of  existence,  and  at  the  next  moment  as  if  they 
were  dramatizations  by  the  medium.  The  first  method  is 
of  course  sometimes  adopted  provisionally  as  the  most  con- 
venient, but  both  ways  correspond  to  the  alternating  impres- 
sions of  any  sitter  not  die-stamped  with  the  spiritist  view 
or  its  extreme  opposite.  When  I  was  a  score  of  years  younger 
(and  wiser,  as  the  younger  think?),  I  should  have  been 
more  consistent — in  the  non-spiritistic  way.  Now,  while  I 
believe  in  a  future  life,  so  far  as  it  will  do  to  use  the  word 
"  believe  "  in  the  absence  of  complete  verification  (whatever 
that  may  mean),  I  am  still  in  doubt  whether  "the  spirits 
of  just  men  made  perfect "  or  the  spirits  of  any  men  at  all, 
speak  through  the  mediums.  At  the  moment  I  suspect  they 
impress  the  mediums  telepathically  to  speak  for  them.  This 
seems  as  in  ordinary  dreams,  only  so  much  more  intensely  that 
(as  sometimes  in  my  dreams)  the  dreamer  feels  identified  with 
the  "agent,"  and  Mrs.  Piper  speaks  as  the  agent. 

The  following  comments  would  have  interrupted  the  mem- 
oranda of  the  sittings  too  much,  had  they  been  placed  among 
them. 

NOTE  1.  The  amount  of  discussion  already  bestowed  upon 
Dr.  Phinuit,  of  whom  we  shall  see  much  more,  almost  places 
him,  with  Junius,  not  to  speak  of  the  Baconian  Shak- 
spere,  among  the  great  problematical  characters  of  literature. 
Through  the  dozen  volumes  of  the  S.  P.  K.,  from  VI,  where 
he  makes  his  first  appearance,  up  to  where  he  disappears, 
nearly  every  commentator  has  a  whack  at  him,  and  the 
whacks  soon  get  very  amusing. 

Half  the  whackers  say  he  does  not  know  French ;  the  other 
half  prove  that  he  does.  Mrs.  Sidgwick  and  Mr.  Lang  state 
that  he  does  not,  and  consider  him  an  unmitigated  scoundrel. 


Ch.  XXVIII]    Opinions  Matters  of  Temperament  391 

Neither  of  these  commentators,  by  the  way,  was  a  "good 
sitter."  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Rich,  who  was  a  good  sitter, 
found  Phinuit  at  home  in  French;  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  also  a 
good  sitter,  is  fond  of  the  old  fellow;  and  I,  who  also  am  a 
good  sitter,  think  Phinuit,  not  only  as  I  talked  with  him, 
but  as  I  have  read  about  everything  in  print  regarding  him, 
one  of  the  most  natural  and  amusing  characters  I  ever  met, 
and  far  from  the  least  lovable. 

Half  the  commentators  say  that  he  is  an  ignorant  quack, 
who  never  uses  a  scientific  term;  the  other  half  say  that 
he  has  helped  them  and  their  friends,  and  given  them  effi- 
cacious prescriptions  abounding  in  the  technicalities  of  the 
pharmacopeia. 

The  whole  discussion  is  a  very  remarkable  instance — re- 
markable even  in  the  debatable  regions  of  Psychical  Research 
— of  how  honest  and  intelligent  people  amid  new  and  ques- 
tionable experiences,  do  not  see  with  their  eyes  or  hear  with 
their  ears,  but  do  both  with  their  temperaments.  The  evi- 
dence will  increase  as  we  proceed. 

An  objection  is  reasonably  taken  to  Phinuit's  uncertain 
and  unverifiable  character.  But  that  character  is  not  nearly 
as  uncertain  and  unverifiable  as  some  commentators  make 
out.  Wherever  Mrs.  Piper  got  the  Phinuit  of  my  sitting, 
whether  from  her  own  invention  or  from  me,  or  from  himself, 
she  certainly  did  not  get  from  me  his  prescription  of  grated 
potatoes  as  a  cure  for  my  ailments:  all  I  had  to  give  in  that 
line  was  objection  by  the  very  highest  authorities  to  just 
that  food.  Of  all  ways  to  account  for  him  yet  proposed, 
far  the  least  labored  seems  to  be  that  she  got  him  from 
himself;  but  being  the  least  labored  does  not  necessarily  prove 
that  way  the  nearest  correct.  Maybe  it  will  yet  be  found 
correct  in  the  form  that  she  got  him  from  the  cosmic  con- 
sciousness, where  perhaps  he  and  she  and  you  and  I  are 
always  to  be  found  by  such  as  have  the  finding  power. 

NOTE  2.  The  medium  gets  impressions  of  all  sorts  from 
things  and  persons  connected  with  the  sitter  or  the  control. 
In  this  instance,  I  was  "connected  with"  B,  but  only  so 
far  as  he  had  become  a  professor  at  Yale  long  after  my 
graduation :  I  did  not  know  him  personally.  But  my  intimate 


392          Mrs.  Piper:  Author's  Experience    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

connection  with  A  was  not  only  direct,  but  through  several 
persons  intimate  with  us  both  and  with  G.  P.  Mere  tele- 
pathy, certainly  mere  telepathy  from  my  mind,  would  have 
"  spotted  "  some  one  of  these  connections  much  more  readily 
than  the  alleged  one  with  B,  which  was  hardly  a  connection 
at  all.  The  simplest  solution  for  the  whole  business,  though 
perhaps  not  the  most  "scientific,"  or  even  rational,  is  that 
the  spirit  of  G.  P.  was  troubled  about  A,  and  habitually 
thinking  of  me  at  the  University  Club  as  a  Yale  man, 
was  reminded,  on  my  turning  up  at  the  seance,  of  the  solution 
of  A's  troubles  proposed  by  B,  who  was  at  Yale,  and,  it  turned 
out  later,  was  trying  to  get  A  a  place  there,  and  G.  P. 
wanted  me  to  help. 

NOTE  3.  "  This  protoplasm."  G.  P.  uses  the  expression 
at  other  sittings,  and  I  think  that  no  other  of  Mrs.  Piper's 
controls  does.  If  she  makes  them  herself,  how  does  she  keep 
them  so  distinct?  The  sittings,  however,  abound  in  com- 
plaints from  the  controls  that  they  find  it  hard  to  express 
themselves  through  the  "  too  solid  flesh  "  of  the  mediums. 

NOTE  4.  Illustrations  of  the  same  experience  (in  shutting 
off  would-be  communicators,  by  will)  are  frequent.  I  am 
evidently  far  from  alone  in  feeling  a  repugnance  from  hav- 
ing communications  from  loved  and  lost  ones  pass  through 
the  body  or  even  the  dreams  of  a  stranger.  But  those  who 
seek  such  communications  may  have  better  nervous  organisms 
than  mine,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  have  my  avoiding  what  pur- 
ported to  be  such  communications,  indicative  of  any  opinion 
regarding  their  genuineness. 

I  experience  no  such  repugnance  regarding  communications 
in  my  own  dreams,  as  will  be  abundantly  demonstrated  later : 
for  there  the  communication  is  not  through  an  intermediary. 

NOTE  5.  This  is  one  of  the  very  frequent  cases  of  the 
medium  going  counter  to  the  sitter's  knowledge,  and  goes 
to  controvert  the  telepathic  theory.  Among  such  cases  are 
many  where  the  medium  (or  control)  turns  out  to  be  right, 
and  the  sitter  wrong. 

NOTE  6.  This  intense  desire,  so  natural  under  the  alleged 
circumstances,  to  prove  survival  to  their  friends,  will  be 
found  characteristic  of  virtually  all  the  controls.  Those 


Ch.  XXVIII]    Controls  Wish  to  Prove  Survival  393 

claiming  to  be  persons  familiar  while  on  earth  with  the 
methods  of  Psychical  Research,  strenuously  and  ingeniously 
use  those  methods  for  the  purpose.  We  shall  find,  after 
the  deaths  of  Myers  and  Hodgson,  that  their  alleged  spirits, 
like  that  of  G.  P.,  apparently  bent  all  their  powers  toward 
that  end.  With  them  it  is  generally  alleged  to  be  for  the 
promotion  of  science,  but  with  the  controls  generally,  as  in 
the  case  just  given,  it  is  of  course  for  the  comfort  of  survivors. 

NOTE  7.  As  already  intimated,  there  has  been  a  great 
deal  of  difference  among  the  commentators  as  to  Phinuit's 
knowledge  and  capacity  as  a  physician.  His  diagnosis  of 
me  might  have  been  telepathic  from  me,  but  his  dietary 
certainly  was  not.  He  has  made  many  diagnoses  that  cer- 
tainly were  not  telepathic,  and  prescriptions  as  technical  as 
doctors  generally  make,  with  good  results.  Instances  will 
appear  in  later  extracts. 

NOTE  8.  "Frank  [possibly  a  dear  friend,"  etc.].  I  said 
"  possibly,"  and  after  "  dear  friend  "  I  was  tempted  to  add : 
"  or  Mrs.  Piper's  personation  of  one."  But  why  should  Mrs. 
Piper  personate  an  individual  she  never  heard  of,  and  of 
course  cares  nothing  about,  for  the  delectation  of  another 
individual  she  never  heard  of  and  cares  nothing  about? 
The  answer,  "  Because  the  latter  gives  her  ten  dollars,"  doesn't 
fit  the  case:  she  is  amply  demonstrated  to  be  not  that  sort 
of  person.  Perhaps  James  would  say,  in  his  pet  phraseology : 
Because  she  has  a  "  will  to  communicate,"  which  is  another 
way  of  saying:  Because  she  wants  to.  But  why  should  she 
want  to?  And  why,  on  the  telepathic  hypothesis,  out  of 
the  hundreds  of  persons  who  have  affected  my  memories, 
should  she  pick  out  this  friend  when  I  had  not  him  specially 
in  mind,  and  when  there  were  "  on  the  other  side "  other 
persons  whose  effect  on  me  had  been  much  greater?  Or, 
to  put  a  stronger  case,  if  she  picked  G.  P.  out  of  my  mind, 
why  of  all  people  who  have  left  traces  there  should  it  be  he  ? 
The  traces  of  him  were  not  as  strong  as  those  of  many  other 
men  much  younger  than  myself.  Such  questions  have  been 
asked  by  innumerable  sitters.  The  only  answer  worth  con- 
sidering that  I  have  seen,  and  that  may  not  be  worth  much, 
is  that  when  the  sitter  does  not  select  the  communicator, 


394          Mrs.  Piper:  Author's  Experience    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

and  Mrs.  Piper  does  not,  the  only  alternative  is  that  he 
selects  himself — that,  in  this  case,  G.  P.  communicated  be- 
cause before  he  died  he  had  determined  and  announced  that 
if  there  was  any  survival  of  death  he  was  going  to  give 
evidence  of  it  if  he  could ;  and  "  Frank/'  if  the  occurrence 
of  the  name  had  anything  to  do  with  my  friend,  sought  to 
communicate  probably  because  he  was  of  a  peculiarly  affec- 
tionate disposition — peculiarly  apt  to  want  to  console  those 
who  had  mourned  him,  and  among  his  generally  conservative 
circle  of  friends  I  was  the  first  one  who  had  given  him  any 
chance  by  turning  up  at  a  sitting.  If  at  the  time,  amid  the 
confusion  natural  to  both  the  sitter's  mind  and  the  writing, 
I  had  attached  all  this  significance  to  the  name,  probably 
I  should  have  tried  to  give  him  the  chance;  but  probably  I 
would  not  have  succeeded :  for  "  the  light  was  going  out," 
as  the  controls  generally  express  it.  Many  of  them  have 
declared  that  to  them  a  medium,  when  in  condition  to  receive 
communication,  is  surrounded  by  a  light,  and  that  as  the 
nervous  sensibility  or  capacity  is  consumed  in  the  process 
of  communication,  the  light  fades  away.  When  I  say:  "the 
controls  say"  this,  I  am  not  expressing  any  opinion  as  to 
what  a  control  is.  The  reader,  if  he  is  built  that  way,  may, 
for  all  me,  consider  it  a  fraudulent  impersonation  by  a  sec- 
ondary self  of  the  medium,  and  made  up  of  data  telepathically 
acquired.  But  the  reader,  by  the  time  he  gets  through  with 
the  facts,  will  find  himself  saddled  with  a  pretty  tough  job. 
A  good  many  people,  however,  and  some  of  them  not  very 
highly  endowed,  have  been  equal  to  the  job,  or  thought 
they  were. 

The  uninitiated  reader  who  has  struggled  through  the 
incoherences  of  this  sitting  will  probably  be  surprised  and, 
I  fear,  discouraged  to  learn  that,  judging  by  the  published 
records  of  other  sittings,  this  is  a  fairly  good  one.  I  take 
shame  to  myself  for  neglecting  to  write  out  my  comments  and 
return  the  record  to  Hodgson.  With  his  experience,  he  prob- 
ably would  have  edited  it  into  much  more  comprehensible 
shape.  I  prefer  to  leave  it  with  its  imperfections. 

If,  instead  of  attributing  the  whole  thing  to  telepathy, 
I  had  then  estimated  the  importance  of  the  subject  as  I 


Ch.  XXVIII]     Changes  in  Author's  Views  395 

do  now,  and  had  the  leisure  I  have  now,  I  should  hare 
returned  it,  even  if  I  had  realized  that,  after  eighteen  years, 
my  comments  would  be  much  better  informed,  and  I  would 
have  occasion  to  use  the  matter  again  in  an  exposition  of 
my  own.  But  my  attitude  regarding  spiritism — that  it  was 
nothing  but  telepathy  from  the  sitter,  having  been  fixed  in 
my  interview  with  Foster,  and  considerable  reading  and  in- 
timate association  with  Hodgson  and  some  other  members 
of  the  S.  P.  R.  not  having  changed  it;  and  finding,  at  the 
time,  in  my  seance  with  Mrs.  Piper  nothing  but  telepathy, 
I  felt  no  interest  in  farther  personal  investigation. 

I  went  away  from  the  sitting  with  the  conviction :  "  She 
gave  me  nothing  which  was  not  in  my  own  mind:  ifs  the 
same  old  story  " ;  and  I  have  not  been  near  a  medium  since, 
and  do  not  care  to  go.  (See  Preface  to  Second  Edition.) 

After  this  confession,  my  venturing  to  write  upon  the 
subject  may  seem  to  others,  as  it  often  does  to  me,  pre- 
sumptuous. That  view,  however,  would  have  silenced  most 
of  the  historians:  for  hardly  any  one  of  them,  or  even  any 
editor,  witnesses  the  events  or  hears  the  debates  that  he  gen- 
eralizes upon ;  nor  often  does  any  philosopher  discover  or  even 
witness  most  of  the  facts  that  he  correlates,  nor  (I  hope  I  am 
not  wearying  you)  any  scientist  most  of  the  facts  on  which 
he  bases  his  discoveries. 

There  exist  better  books  on  this  department  of  my  subject 
than  I  dare  hope  this  is  going  to  be,  but  most  of  the 
good  ones  appeal  principally  to  students  who  have  held 
many  sittings;  and  were  begun  to  support  theses,  while 
I  write  for  lay  readers,  and  at  least  began  with  the  intention 
of  letting  the  theses  regarding  this  part  of  my  subject  form 
themselves  as  I  should  go  along.  Moreover,  my  long  experi- 
ence as  a  publisher  has  taught  me  that  intermediaries  are 
needed  between  experts  and  lay  readers.  I  have  habitually 
said  to  experts  to  whom  I  have  suggested  non-technical  books : 
"The  right  point  of  view  must  cover  both  knowledge  and 
ignorance;  I  can  trust  you  for  the  knowledge,  and  I  can 
supply  the  ignorance."  I  am  doing  something  of  that  here. 

Nevertheless,  if  the  persons  who  get  and  read  an  average 
book,  would  get  and  read  the  forty  volumes  of  the  Proceedings 


396          Mrs.  Piper:  Author's  Experience    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

and  Journal  of  the  S.  P.  R.,  and  would  arrange  from  their 
necessarily  heterogeneous  contents,  fairly  systematic  presenta- 
tions of  the  principal  classes  of  phenomena,  probably  this  book 
would  not  have  been  written.  I  even  doubt  if  it  would  have 
been  if  there  were  any  probability  that  as  many  persons  as 
may  read  it,  would  ever  read,  in  Part  XXXIII  (Vol.  XIII), 
Hodgson's  treatment  of  the  ground  he  covers.  There  are  only 
two  reasons  why  I  do  not  advise  you,  if  your  time  is  limited, 
to  drop  this  book  where  you  are,  and  substitute  that :  Hodgson 
does  not  cover  the  ground  that  I  shall  attempt  to  cover  in 
my  chapters  on  the  dream  life,  and  in  my  final  summary,  and 
in  the  passages  preliminary  to  them;  and,  so  far  as  I  know, 
no  other  writer  on  the  general  subject  has  been  as  persistently 
haunted  as  I  have  by  the  conception  of  the  Cosmic  Soul. 

And  again,  in  a  subject  consisting  so  largely  of  specula- 
tion, and  interpreted  so  largely  by  temperament,  there  is 
a  chance  of  almost  any  work,  however  humble,  doing  some- 
thing that  other  works  do  not. 

Behind  all  the  apologia  I  have  given,  is  the  fact  that  I  have 
found  the  change  from  a  disbelief  in  the  survival  of  bodily 
death,  so  fruitful,  intellectually  as  well  as  emotionally,  that  I 
am  prompted  to  do  what  I  can  to  share  it  with  others.  Never- 
theless, my  convictions  do  not  rest  on  the  phenomena  of 
mediumship,  to  which  I  do  not  yet  confidently  assign  the 
spiritistic  hypothesis — at  least  as  it  is  usually  understood. 

But  when,  about  1908,  I  had  my  long  row  of  "  Proceed- 
ings "  bound  up,  and  began  to  read  consecutively  what,  before, 
I  had  merely  dipped  into  spasmodically,  the  aspects  of  the 
evidence  underwent  some  change.  Moreover,  in  the  mean- 
time I  had  received,  in  other  ways,  indications  pointing  more 
strongly  to  survival  of  bodily  death  than  to  any  explanation 
I  could  frame  or  find  (see  Chapter  LV).  This  of  course 
tended  to  change  my  point  of  view  regarding  the  phenomena 
shown  by  the  "mediums,"  but  by  no  means  reversed  it. 
I  gradually  realized,  however,  that  my  conclusion  that  Mrs. 
Piper  gave  me  nothing  which  was  not  in  my  own  mind,  was 
very  superficial.  The  effect  on  me  of  reading  the  Pro- 
ceedings is  that  if  we  render  unto  telepathy  all  the  things 
which  are  telepathy's,  there  is  still  a  great  deal  to  be  ac- 
counted for.  Ascribe  every  verified  statement  in  the  reports, 


Ch.  XXVIII]    Experiences  Outside  Telepathy  397 

if  you  will,  to  telepathy,  what  are  you  going  to  do  with 
the  immense  number  of  alleged  personages  through  whom 
the  statements  come,  with  their  own  consistent  opinions 
regarding  the  statements  and  other  things,  their  initiatives, 
discriminations,  responses,  retaliations? 

Mrs.  Piper  gave  me  at  least  the  following  things  which 
were  not  in  my  own  mind : 

I.  The  impersonation  of  Phinuit.  Mrs.  Piper  didn't  get 
from  me  his  humor  or  bumptiousness  or  medical  skill  or 
philanthropy  or  dramatic  qualities  generally. 

She  may  have  got  him  from  the  first  medium  with  whom 
she  sat  (see  Chapter  XXIX),  and  it  may  have  been  a  delib- 
erate invention  of  that  medium,  expanded  by  her;  but  not  by 
her  supraliminal  self :  for  that  knows  next  to  nothing  of  what 
occurs  in  her  trances;  and  her  honesty  regarding  it  is  now 
beyond  all  question.  If  she  had  developed  and  expanded 
a  fictitious  dramatic  impersonation,  which  she  calls  Phinuit, 
she  did  it  through  her  subliminal  self — an  activity  to  which 
I  find  it  more  and  more  difficult  to  apply  the  term  "  self,"  ex- 
cept only  so  far  as  its  nature  and  degree  are  determined  by  the 
conformation  of  the  self  as  a  receiving  and  transmitting  in- 
strument. But  so  far  as  the  subliminal  self  is  a  motive  power, 
I  grow  less  and  less  able  to  conceive  it  as  anything  but 
a  cosmic  inflow,  different  from  the  cosmic  inflow  making 
our  ordinary  (supraliminal)  selves,  in  being  a  special  in- 
flux depending  upon  some  unusual  circumstance — in  Mrs. 
Piper's  case,  presence  of  a  sitter  and  the  condition  of  trance. 

In  guessing  the  Cosmic  Soul  to  contain  in  some  mys- 
terious way  "the  potency  and  power"  of  all  the  ideas, 
impressions,  memories,  psychical  activities  in  what  we  call 
the  universe,  I  of  course  guess  it  to  contain  all  the  groups 
of  them  which  we  call  personalities.  Until  lately,  person- 
alities have  appeared  to  be  "  real  or  imaginary " :  the  real 
ones  appearing  to  be  created  by  a  spontaneous  cosmic  inflow 
independent  of  any  human  volition,  into  a  receptacle  that 
we  know  in  each  case  as  an  independent  human  body;  the 
imaginary  ones,  so  far  as  we  have  known  until  lately,  are 
created  by  a  cosmic  inflow  sought  and  controlled  more  or  less 
definitely  by  a  real  personality — an  author.  We  know  some  of 


398          Mrs.  Piper:  Author's  Experience    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

them  as  Colonel  Esmond,  Becky  Sharp,  lago,  Eosalind,  and 
the  like,  and  entertain  regarding  them  many  of  the  opinions 
and  feelings  that  we  entertain  regarding  real  personalities. 
Now  supposing  Phinuit  never  to  have  existed  in  the  flesh,  are 
he  and  his  class,  of  these  imaginary  personalities,  or  do  they 
belong  to  still  a  third  class — a  cosmic  inflow  without  a 
"  human  body,"  and  yet  not  "  created  by  a  cosmic  inflow 
sought  or  controlled  ...  by  a  real  personality  "  ?  If  he  did 
once  exist  in  the  flesh,  of  course  he  is  just  such  an  individual 
effect  of  the  cosmic  inflow  as  G.  P.  and  my  cousin  and  hosts 
like  them,  and  as  you  and  I  may  yet  be — in  fact  are  already, 
only  we  have  so  far  been  (or  had  to  be)  content  to  use  only 
our  own  bodies. 

This  is  guess  and  speculation.  Whether  I'm  ready  to 
swear  to  it  as  fact,  as  I  do  to  the  words  uttered  to  me  by 
the  Phinuit  personality  or  impersonation  I  am  guessing 
about,  is  another  matter. 

II.  Mrs.  Piper  did  not  get  from  me  Phinuit's  statement, 
whether  true  or  not,  that  I  am  a  medium — a  point  on  which 
there  was  probably  never  an  opinion,  or  even  a  curiosity,  in 
any  mortal  mind.    Whence,  then,  could  the  assertion  have  been 
telepathed  ?    I  am  a  very  good  dreamer,  and  she  may  have  per- 
ceived some  mediumistic  quality  in  my  makeup.     There  is 
probably  more  than  is  realized,  in  everybody's. 

III.  She  did  not  get  from  me  Phinuit's  question  whether 
I  wanted  him  to  tell  me  the  length  of  my  grandfather's  cat's 
tail. 

IV.  She  did  not  get  from  me  the  dramatic  verisimilitude 
of  G.  P.'s  comments  and  remarks.    /  didn't  call  her  "  this 
protoplasm  " ;  and  she  didn't  call  herself  that  by  a  long  shot. 
Then  somebody  other  than  I  must  have  invented  those  phrases 
and  all  the  other  things  she  did  not  get  from  me.    To  say  that 
she  did,  is,  as  we  shall  have  abundant  evidence  later,  to  say 
that  she  is  the  greatest  dramatist  that  ever  lived.     To  say 
that  her  subliminal  self  did,  is  but  to  beg  the  question.    So 
is  it  to  say  that  a  secondary  self  was  Phinuit  and  a  tertiary 
self  G.  P.,  and  so  on  down  to  the  hundreds  of  her  controls. 

V.  She  did  not  get  from  me  the  facts  about  A  and  B, 
yet  she  may  have  got  them  teloteropathically  from  either  or 
both  of  those  persons. 


Ch.  XXVIII]         Telepathy  Inadequate  399 

VI.  She  did  not  get  from  me  her  G.  P. :  for  hers  was 
not  merely  the  G.  P.  I  had  known,  but  one  who  had  grown. 
She  may  have  got  from  me  some  facts  of  his  personality, 
but  where  did  she  get  his  anxiety  to  prove  his  continued 
existence,  and  to  have  me  do  something  to  better  the  state 
of  affairs  with  A  and  B? 

VII.  She  may  have  got  from  me  the  facts  that  my  cousin 
Albert  was  drowned  and  that  his  mother  was  (or  had  been) 
in  the  South,  but  she  did  not  get  from  me  his  poignant 
anxiety  to  have  me  tell  his  mother  that  he  had  survived  the 
drowning. 

Among  these  seven  points  are  germs  which  we  will  find 
growing  as  we  proceed  to  sittings  of  far  more  interest 


CHAPTEK  XXIX 

HODGSON'S  FIRST  PIPER  REPORT,  1888-91 
Mrs.  Pipers  Early  Experiences 

FROM  my  experiences  with  Mrs.  Piper,  let  us  now  turn  to 
the  records  where,  but  for  reasons  given,  we  would  naturally 
have  begun. 

Probably  the  first  public  mention  of  Mrs.  Piper  in  any 
organ  seriously  associated  with  science  is  in  the  Proceedings  of 
the  American  S.P.E.  for  July,  1886.  On  p.  95  is  the  state- 
ment: 

"  In  two  persons  (one  of  them  being  the  Mrs.  P.  who  is  men- 
tioned in  the  report  on  mediumistic  phenomena)  an  arm  was 
made  absolutely  anaesthetic,  whilst  retaining  its  muscular  con- 
tractility." 

And  in  the  "  report "  aforesaid  (pp.  102-6)  signed  by  no 
less  a  person  than  James,  it  is  stated : 

"  This  lady  can  at  will  pass  into  a  trance  condition,  in  which 
she  is  'controled'  by  a  power  purporting  to  be  the  spirit  of  a 
French  doctor,  who  serves  as  intermediary  between  the  sitter  and 
the  deceased  friends.  This  is  the  ordinary  type  of  trance-medi- 
umship  at  the  present  day 

"  I  am  persuaded  of  the  medium's  honesty,  and  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  her  trance ;  and ...  I  now  believe  her  to  be  in  possession 
of  a  power  as  yet  unexplained." 

Now  the  hypnotic  theory  of  telepsychosis  that  I  advanced 
earlier,  if  it  is  to  fit  Mrs.  Piper,  must  be  modified  to  this 
extent.  She  is  not  readily  thrown  into  the  hypnotic  trance 
by  anybody  but  herself.  Neither  is  she  susceptible  to  ordinary 
thought-transference,  when  vigilant,  like  Mr.  Guthrie's  young 
women,  and  she  has  an  appreciable  number  of  failures 
in  trance.  James  reports  on  all  that  in  Pr.  American  S.P.R., 
102f.,  and  adds: 

"  So  far  as  the  evidence  goes,  then,  her  medium-trance  seems 
400 


Ch.  XXIX]      Mrs.  Piper's  Early  Experiences  401 

an  isolated  feature  in  her  psychology.  This  would  of  itself  be 
an  important  result  if  it  could  be  established  and  general- 
ized  " 

The  result  seems  to  have  since  been  "  established  and  gen- 
eralized," and  she  does  not  even  exhibit  telekinesis,  which 
was  done  by  Foster,  Home,  and  Moses. 

The  first  important  report  published  on  Mrs.  Piper  is  in 
Pr.  VI,  by  Myers,  Lodge,  and  James,  and  covers  sittings  in 
England  from  the  latter  part  of  November,  1889  till  early  in 
February,  1890.  But  this  does  not  deal  with  manifestations  as 
early  as  some  reported  in  Pr.  VIII  by  Hodgson,  and  covering 
sittings  from  1887  through  1891.  In  making  my  selections, 
I  will  attempt  to  follow  chronology  as  closely  as  practicable, 
and  accordingly  will  draw  on  Pr.  VIII  before  Pr.  VI. 

The  papers  in  the  Proceedings  being  prepared  by  different 
persons,  widely  differently  circumstanced,  even  in  different 
continents  (not  excluding  Asia),  the  order  of  their  publica- 
tion was  by  no  means  that  of  the  occurrence  of  the  events 
they  chronicled.  Hence  in  our  attempts  at  a  chronological 
order,  which  at  best  we  can  attain  but  very  roughly,  we  will 
have  to  skip  to  and  fro  among  the  volumes. 

Hodgson  prefaces  his  report  with  an  interesting  account  of 
Mrs.  Piper's  initiation  into  mediumship  (Pr.  VIII,  46f.) : 

"  Mrs.  Piper  herself  has  given  me  what  information  she  could. 
In  reply  to  inquiries  in  January,  1888,  she  informed  me  that  her 
husband's  father  and  mother ...  in  1884 . . .  persuaded  her  to  try 
consultation  with  a  medium  who  gave  medical  advice.  She  was 
at  that  time  suffering  from  a  tumor.  She  visited  Mr.  J.  R. 
Cocke,  a  blind  medium,  also  a  '  developer '  of  mediums.  He 
professed  to  be  controlled  by  -a  French  physician  whose  name  was 
pronounced  Finny.  While  there,  she  felt  curious  twitchings, 
and  thought  she  might  become  completely  unconscious.  On  a 
second  visit  to  Mr.  Cocke  he  placed  his  hands  on  her  head,  and 
shortly  after  she  became  unconscious.  As  she  was  losing  con- 
sciousness she  was  aware  of  a  flood  of  light  and  saw  strange 
faces,  and  a  hand  moving  before  her.  The  '  flood  of  light '  she 
had  experienced  once  before,  a  few  months  previously ;  it  imme- 
diately preceded  a  swoon,  caused  by  a  sudden  blow  on  the  side 
of  the  head.  When  she  lost  consciousness  on  the  occasion  of  her 
second  visit  to  Mr.  Cocke,  she  was  said  to  have  been  controlled 
by  an  Indian  girl  who  gave  the  name  '  Chlorine,'  and  to  have 
given  a  remarkable  test  to  a  stranger  who  was  present.  She 


402  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

had  several  more  sittings  with  Mr.  Cocke,  and  was  again  con- 
trolled, apparently  on  each  occasion  by  '  Chlorine.' " 

This  name  is  evidently  pitched  upon  on  account  of  its 
euphony  and  apparent  femininity,  by  some  consciousness — 
we  can't  tell  whose,  perhaps  Mrs.  Piper's  subliminal  (what- 
ever that  may  mean) — unaware  of  the  meaning  of  the  word 
(which  I  hardly  need  tell  the  reader  usually  refers  to  a 
rather  fetid  gas),  and  especially  of  its  etymological  meaning — 
light  green. 

Hodgson  continues: 

"  On  her  second  visit  to  Mr.  Cocke,  he  professed  to  be  con- 
trolled by  John  Sebastian  Bach.  After  this  she  tried  sitting  at 
home  with  her  relatives  and  friends.  Phinuit  (sic)  '  controlled ' 
first,  and  since  then  regularly,  but  she  was  also  ostensibly  con- 
trolled at  occasional  times  by  Mrs.  Siddons,  Bach,  Longfellow, 
Commodore  Vanderbilt,  and  Loretta  Ponchini.  It  was  said  that 
'  Mrs.  Siddons '  recited  a  scene  from  Macbeth,  Longfellow  was 
said  to  have  written  some  verses,  and  Loretta  Ponchini  (who 
purported  to  be  an  Italian  girl)  to  have  made  some  drawings. 
These  verses  and  drawings  have  not  been  preserved 

"  Dr.  Phinuit  only  came  at  first  to  give  medical  advice.  He 
'  didn't  care  to  come  for  other  matters,'  as  he  thought  them  '  too 
trivial.' 

"  Finally  Sebastian  Bach  said  they  were  going  to  concentrate 
all  their  powers  on  Phinuit,  and  he  ultimately  became  the  chief 
control. 

"  Mr.  Piper  says  that  there  is  no  question  but  that  it  is  the 
same  Phinuit  or  personality  who  controls  Dr.  Cocke,  no  matter 
how  their  names  are  spelt." 

The  questions  regarding  him  are  different  from  those  re- 
garding most  of  the  other  controls :  for,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Imperator  group,  they,  in  ordinary  life,  were  generally 
known,  personally  or  historically,  to  the  sitters ;  while  Phinuit 
has  loomed  upon  the  world  as  free  from  origins  as  Melchize- 
dek,  and  some  people  think,  despite  his  lack  of  priestly  ways, 
with  as  important  a  mission.  But  he  has  alleged  a  lot  of 
origins  that,  so  far,  cannot  be  traced.  Even,  however,  if 
they  never  can  be,  the  fact  would  not  prove  that  he  never 
existed. 

He  himself  (I  use  the  term  simply  for  convenience,  without 
expressing  any  opinion,  and  shall  do  so  freely  regarding  other 
controls)  says  through  Mrs.  Piper  (Pr.  VIII,  50;  Hodgson's 
comments  are  interspersed)  : 


Ch.  XXIX]      Phinuit's  Account  of  Himself  403 

" '  Phinuit  is  one  of  my  names ;  Scliville  is  my  other  name ; 
Dr.  Jean  Phinuit  Scliville ;  they  always  called  me  Dr.  Phinuit.' 
He  was  unable  to  tell  the  year  of  his  birth  or  the  year  of  his 
death,  but  by  putting  together  several  of  his  statements,  it  would 
appear  that  he  was  born  about  1790  and  died  about  1860.  He 
was  born  in  Marseilles,  went  to  school  and  studied  medicine  at  a 
college  in  Paris  called  '  Merciana '( ?)College,  where  he  took  his 
degree  when  he  was  between  twenty-five  and  twenty-eight  years 
old.  '  Merciana.  You  know  the  name  "  Meershaum  "  f  That 
is  the  same  name ;  I  cannot  spell  it ;  sounds  something  like  that.' 
He  also  studied  medicine  at '  Metz,  in  Germany.'  At  the  age  of 
thirty-five  he  married  Marie  Latimer,  who  had  a  sister  named 
Josephine.  '  Josephine  was  a  sweetheart  of  mine  first,  but  I 
went  back  on  her  and  married  Marie  after  all.'  Marie  was 
thirty  years  of  age  when  he  married  her,  and  died  when  she  was 
about  fifty.  He  had  no  children.  P. :  'Do  you  know  where  the 
Hospital  of  God  is,  Hospital  de  Dieu  (Hotel  Dieu)?'  Sitter: 
'  It  is  in  Paris.'  P. :  'Do  you  remember  old  Dyruputia ?  Dyr- 
uputia  [Dupuytren  ?]  was  the  head  of  the  hospital,  and  there  is 
a  street  named  for  him.'  He  went  to  London  and  from  London 
to  Belgium.  '  I  went  to  very  different  places  after  my  health 
broke  down.' " 

On  Dec.  26, 1889,  Phinuit  said  to  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  through 
Mrs.  Piper  (Pr.  VI,  520) : 

" '  I  have  been  30  to  35  years  in  spirit,  I  think.  I  died  when  I 
was  70  of  leprosy,  very  disagreeable.  I  had  been  to  Australia 
and  Switzerland.  My  wife's  name  was  Mary  Latimer.  I  had  a 
sister  Josephine  (p.  495).  John  was  my  father's  name.  I 
studied  medicine  at  Metz,  where  I  took  my  degree  at  30  years 
old,  married  at  35.  Get  someone  to  look  all  this  up,  and  take 

pains  about  it.    Look  up  the  town  of ,  also  the  Hotel  Dieu 

in  Paris.  I  was  born  in  Marseilles,  am  a  Southern  French  gen- 
tleman. Find  out  a  woman  named  Carey.  Irish.  Mother  Irish, 
father  French.  I  had  compassion  on  her  in  the  hospital.  My 
name  is  John  Phinuit  Schlevelle  (or  ?Clavelle),  but  I  was 
always  called  Dr.  Phinuit.  Do  you  know  Dr.  Clinton  Perry? 
Find  him  at  Dupuytren,  and  this  woman  at  the  Hotel  Dieu. 

There's  a  street  named  Dupuytren,  a  great  street  for  doctors 

This  is  my  business  now,  to  communicate  with  those  in  the  body, 
and  make  them  believe  our  existence.' " 

Hodgson  comments  regarding  the  statements  he  quoted,  and 
that  just  given.  He  says : 

"  Some  discrepancies  will  be  noticed  between  these  statements 
and  those  given  in  Pr.VI,520,  and  I  understand  that  no  trace  of 
'  Jean  Phinuit  Schliville '  has  been  discovered  at  the  medical 
schools  where  Phinuit  claims  to  have  studied  and  practised,  or 


404  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

along  other  lines  of  inquiry  suggested  by  the  few  fragments 

which  he  offers  of  his  life  history 

"  Concerning  his  inability  to  speak  French,  Phinuit's  original 
explanation  to  me  was  that  he  had  lived  in  Metz  the  latter  part 
of  his  life,  and  there  were  many  English  there,  so  that  he  was 
compelled  to  speak  English  and  had  forgotten  his  French.  I 
replied  that  this  explanation  was  very  surprising,  and  that  a 
much  more  plausible  one  would  be  that  he  was  obliged  to  use 
the  brain  of  the  medium,  and  would  therefore  manifest  no  more 
familiarity  with  French  than  she  possessed.  This — trite  enough 
— suggestion  appeared  to  Phinuit  also  more  plausible,  since  a 
few  days  later  he  offered  it  himself  to  another  sitter  as  an  ex- 
planation of  his  inability  to  sustain  a  conversation  in  French !  " 

There  is  a  very  simple  answer  to  all  this:  he  could  speak 
French,  though  Mrs.  Piper  could  not.  See  pages  414  and  420. 

< "  Dr.  C.  W.  F.  [see  Report  No.  23,  Pr.VIII,98f.  H.H.],  reques- 
tioned  Phinuit  about  the  prominent  medical  men  in  Paris  in 
Phinuit's  time.  The  names  of  Bouvier  and  Dupuytren  were 
given.  Dr.  F.  tells  me  that  he  (Dr.  C.  W.  F.)  knew  nothing 
about  Bouvier  previously,  but  knew  well  about  Dupuytren.  The 
doctors  he  had  in  mind  at  the  time  of  his  question  '  were  Vel- 
peau,  Bouillaud,  Nelaton,  Andral,  and  many  others,  all  promi- 
nent forty  or  fifty  years  ago  with  extended  reputations.'  [If  it 
is  all  telepathy,  why  didn't  Phinuit  name  one  of  them  from  Dr. 
F.'s  mind?  H.H.]  Taking  the  foregoing  considerations  together, 
it  appears  to  me  that  there  is  good  reason  for  concluding  that 
Phinuit  is  not  a  French  doctor." 

Or  he  must  be  a  French  doctor  communicating  under  dis- 


Hodgson  goes  on  to  say  something  which  tends  very  strongly 
to  separate  Phinuit's  personality  from  Mrs.  Piper's  (Pr.  VIII, 
55-6) : 

"  On  one  occasion,  not  long  before  a  sitting  (June  30th,  1888), 
Mrs.  Piper  was  startled  by  a  very  near  sudden  clap  of  thunder, 
and  Phinuit,  on  being  afterwards  questioned,  appeared  to  have 
no  knowledge  of  the  circumstance,  and  apparently  tried  to  guess 
at  what  had  occurred.  Similarly  on  questioning  Phinuit  at  one 
of  my  early  sittings  concerning  the  life  of  Mrs.  Piper,  he  pro- 
fessed ignorance  on  the  subject,  but  said  that  he  would  '  find  out 
things.' . . .  Soon  afterwards,  however,  Phinuit  told  me  of  inci- 
dents in  connection  with  Mrs.  Piper  which  I  think  that  Mrs. 

Piper  herself  would  never  have  mentioned  to  me 1  have  also 

met  with  several  cases  where  Mrs.  Piper  [in  the  waking  state? 
H.H.]  knew  not  a  little  of  the  sitter's  ordinary  environment, 


Ch.  XXIX]    Hodgson's  First  Account  of  PJiinuit          405 

names  of  friends,  &c.,  and  yet  this  information  was  not  given 
by  Phinuit." 

Hodgson  says  (Pr.  VIII,  5)  of  one  occasion  when  he  per- 
suaded Phinuit  to  stand  up : 

"  Mrs.  Piper  stood  up  without  changing  the  position  of  her 
feet,  at  the  same  time  throwing  her  head  slightly  back  and  her 
chest  forward,  and  thrusting  the  thumbs  jauntily  into  what  would 
have  been  the  annholes  of  her  waistcoat  had  she  worn  one." 

Hodgson  continues  (pp.  8-9) : 

"  I  have  been  at  sittings  where  Phinuit  has  displayed  such 
paltering  and  equivocation,  and  such  a  lack  of  lucidity,  that  I 
believe  had  these  been  my  only  experiences  with  him  I  should 
without  any  hesitation  have  condemned  Mrs.  Piper  as  an  im- 
postor. Such  failures  appear  to  depend  sometimes,  but  not  al- 
ways, on  the  sitter.  As  Phinuit  himself  confessed  (May  26th, 
1888) :  '  Sometimes  when  I  come  here,  do  you  know,  actually  it 
is  hard  work  for  me  to  get  control  of  the  medium,  and  sometimes 
not  at  all.  Then  I  am  weak  and  confused.' 

"  Considering,  then,  my  own  first  six  sittings  [from  which  we 
will  have  extracts  later.  H.H.],  I  find  that  all  the  correct  (veri- 
fiable) statements  made  by  Phinuit  concerned  matters  known  to 
me,  except  the  insignificant  prophecy  that  my  sister  (in  Aus- 
tralia) would  soon  have  a  fourth  child — a  boy.  I  had  no  (con- 
scious) knowledge  even  that  another  child  was  '  coming  very 
soon.'  On  the  other  hand,  I  did  not  consciously  know  the  Chris- 
tian name  of  my  mother's  father,  though  I  had  probably  heard 
it,  and  this  was  incorrectly  given  as  John.  [Identically  the 
same  with  Foster  and  my  "  Orandpere  aux  Franqais"  H.H.] 
Further,  Phinuit  failed  to  obtain  information,  or  made  funda- 
mental mistakes,  in  matters  about  which  my  own  recollections 
were  very  clear  and  vivid.  The  most  striking  circumstances  cor- 
rectly mentioned  were  concerning  the  lady  whom  I  have  called 
'  Q.'  and  my  cousin  Fred,  and  were  such  as  I  should  expect  those 
persons  to  select,  if  in  actual  communication  with  me,  as  proofs 
of  identity.  But  then,  again,  Phinuit  was  unable  to  tell  me  of 
circumstances  about  which  I  made  special  inquiry,  and  which 
were  at  least  as  familiar  to  the  alleged  '  spirit '  as  those  described 
to  me.  Thus,  Phinuit  never  told  me  the  full  name  of  '  Q.,' 
though  I  frequently  asked  for  it  at  later  sittings.  His  explana- 
tion was  that '  Q.'  refused  to  tell  him,  but  Phinuit  has  frequently 
urged  his  ignorance  on  this  point  as  a  proof  that  he  cannot '  read 
my  mind '  (an  inability  of  which  he  is  very  anxious  to  assure 
me),  and  I  suspect  that  this  ignorance  may  be  assumed." 

But  there  is  too  much  of  just  that  sort  of  ignorance  in  all 
mediumistic  manifestations.  All  the  experience  since  this 


406  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

writing  of  Hodgson's  (1891)  indicates  that  ignorance  to  be  a 
powerful  argument  against  the  telepathic  hypothesis:  if  the 
mediums  read  the  minds  of  the  sitters  or  of  absent  persons, 
why  should  many  of  the  least  definite  things  be  read,  and 
many  of  the  most  definite  left  unread?  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  Hodgson  continues  (pp.  9-10)  : 

"  However  this  may  be,  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  Phinuit's 
unquestionable  failure  to  obtain  satisfactory  replies  to  many 
questions  which  have  been  asked  of  '  deceased  friends '  is  a  most 
formidable  objection,  as  we  shall  see  later,  to  the  '  spirit  hypo- 
thesis ' — at  least  as  it  is  commonly  accepted. 

"  Admitting  now  that  the  facts  mentioned  at  these  first  sit- 
tings of  mine  were  drawn  by  Phinuit  from  my  mind,  I  must 
notice  that  they  were,  certainly  most  of  them,  and  possibly  all 
of  them,  obtained  from  my  mind  at  a  time  when  I  was  not  con- 
sciously thinking  of  them Vivid  conscious  thinking  of  a  cir- 
cumstance does  not  seem,  indeed,  to  help  Pbinuit  in  any  way, 
but  rather  the  contrary." 

Not  so  Foster  with  me :  quite  the  reverse,  and  not  so  Mrs. 
Thompson  generally,  and  numerous  other  cases.  Mrs.  Verrall 
comments  on  her  experience  with  Mrs.  Thompson's  control 
(Pr.  XVII,  174)  : 

"When  at  Nelly's  suggestion  I  have  fixed  my  attention  on 
some  detail  for  the  sake  of  helping  her  to  get  it,  I  have  never 
succeeded  in  doing  anything  but  what  she  calls  '  muggling  her.' " 

Hodgson  resumes  (Pr.  VIII,  11) : 

"  My  conclusion,  then,  about  my  own  [Hodgson's.  H.H.]  first 
six  sittings  is  that  the  statements  made  by  Phinuit  may  be  re- 
garded as  explicable  on  the  hypothesis  that  he  had  access  to 
portions  of  my  '  subconscious '  mind." 

We  shall  find  that  farther  experience  reversed  Hodgson's 
conclusions.  But  even  at  that  stage  of  the  game  he  farther 
concludes — a  striking  illustration  of  the  self-contradictions 
incident  to  these  perplexing  phenomena  (Pr.  VIII,  56)  : 

"  I  am  convinced,  as  regards  the  bare  information  shown  by 
Phinuit,  that  it  cannot  be  accounted  for  entirely  by  thought- 
transference  from  the  sitters,  and  that  at  least  some  hypothesis 
which  goes  as  far  as  thought-transference  from  the  minds  of  dis- 
tant living  persons  is  demanded." 

I  am  astonished  to  find  throughout  the  Pr.  S.  P.  E.  how 
much  there  is  of  this  "  harping  on  my  daughter  " — on  "  bare 
information."  Grant  all  the  telepathy  ("  bare  information  ") 


Ch.  XXIX]          Miss  E.  0.  W.'s  Sittings  407 

you  please — from  the  sitter  and  from  incarnate  intelligences 
the  world  over;  deny,  if  you  please,  any  telepathy  ("bare  in- 
formation ")  whatever  from  discarnate  intelligences,  you  have 
still  got  to  account  for  the  give-and-take  and  general  dra- 
matic character  of  the  controls.  How  do  you  propose  to  ?  By 
the  medium's  secondary  personalities?  Then  are  you  ready 
to  allow  that  she  has  a  thousand  ?  If  not,  have  you  any  third 
hypothesis  to  offer  but  the  spiritistic?  I  certainly  have  not, 
except  spiritism  as  interpreted  by  the  Cosmic  Inflow,  which, 
vague  as  it  is,  nevertheless  seems  to  me,  amid  all  its  fogs,  more 
like  a  fact  than  a  hypothesis.  I  shall  have  more  to  say  regard- 
ing secondary  personalities. 

Hodgson  goes  on  to  give  details  from  forty-one  of  the  sittings 
which  Mrs.  Piper  gave  before  she  went  to  England  in  1889. 
After  a  few  extracts  from  them,  I  will  devote  a  chapter  to 
the  English  reports  in  Pr.  VI,  and  a  few  words  about 
Hodgson's  reports  from  twelve  more  sittings  after  her  return 
to  America  up  to  the  end  of  1891. 

Miss  E.  0.  W.'s  Account  of  Sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper 
(Pr.  VIH,29f.). 

"  My  forty-fire  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper  cover  the  period  from 
November  12th,  1886,  to  June  19th,  1889.  In  forty-one  of  these 
the  control  was  taken,  for  at  least  a  part  of  the  hour,  by  a  per- 
sonal friend  whose  subjects  of  conversation,  forms  of  expression, 
and  ways  of  looking  at  things  were  distinctly  unlike  either  Mrs. 
Piper's  or  Dr.  Phinuit's.  The  clearly-marked  personality  of  that 
friend,  whom  I  will  call  T.,  is  to  me  the  most  convincing  proof 
of  Mrs.  P.'s  supernatural  power,  but  it  is  a  proof  impossible  to 
present  to  anyone  else 

11  T.  was  a  Western  man,  and  the  localism  of  using  like  as  a 
conjunction  clung  to  him,  despite  my  frequent  correction,  all  his 
life.  At  my  sitting  on  December  16th,  1886,  he  remarked,  'If 
you  could  see  it  like  I  do.'  Forgetful  for  the  instant  of  changed 
conditions,  I  promptly  repeated,  '  As  I  do.'  '  Ah,'  came  the  re- 
sponse, '  that  sounds  natural.  That  sounds  like  old  times.' 

"  March  1st,  1888,  he  requested, '  Throw  off  this  rug,'  referring 
to  a  loose  fur-lined  cloak  which  I  wore.  I ...  weeks  after  re- 
called that  he  bad  once,  while  living,  spoken  of  it  in  the  same 
way  as  I  threw  it  over  him  on  the  lounge.  February  18th,  18S7, 
T.  remarked,  '  I  like  your  arrangement  here,'  referring  to  a  new 
gown  by  a  term  which  he  was  wont  to  use. 

"  March  2nd,  1887,  came  this :  '  I  never  knew  you  had  a  little 
sister  here.  She  tells  me  she  has  been  here  a  long  time,  ever 


408  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

since  she  was  a  little  toddling  baby.'  Certainly  not  I  [from 
whose  mind  it  could  be  read  on  the  hypothesis  of  "  telepathy 
from  the  sitter."  H.H.],  nor  Mrs.  P.,  who  has  children  of  her 
own,  would  speak  of  a  four  months  old  child  as  a  '  toddling 
baby.'  It  is  more  thinkable  of  a  man  who,  like  T.,  never  knew 
anything  of  young  children. 

"  I  have  received  from  T.,  dictated  through  Mrs.  P.  to  her 
husband  and  sent  me  by  post,  seven  letters  at  intervals  . . .  each 
contains  familiar  allusions  and  the  old-time  opening  and  closing 
phrases,  either  of  which  is  too  long  and  individual  to  have  been 
merely  chanced  upon.  The  post-office  address  of  the  first  is 
worth  mention.  Mrs.  P.  had  learned  from  me  neither  name  nor 

residence On  November  16th,  1886,  Dr.  P.  told  me  that  T. 

was  dictating  a  letter  to  me.     '  How  will  you  address  it  ? '  I 
asked.    '  T.  knows  your  address  and  will  give  it  to  the  medium.' 
November  29th,  a  friend,  who  had  been  sitting  with  Mrs.  P., 
brought  me  word  that  the  promised  letter  had  been  mailed  to — 
Miss  Nellie  Wilson, 

Care  David  Wilson, 

Beading,  Mass. 

"  By  applying  at  the  post-office  at  Heading  I  was  able  to  ob- 
tain the  letter.  I  alter  the  names,  but  these  points  may  be 
noted : — 

"  1.  My  surname  is  given  correctly. 

"  2.  I  have  a  cousin,  David  Wilson,  of  whose  relationship  and 
friendship  T.  was  well  aware.  His  home,  however,  has  always 
been  in  New  York. 

"3.  Heading  was  my  home  during  my  childhood  and  youth, 
but  I  removed  from  it  thirteen  years  ago.  I  knew  T.  only  sub- 
sequent to  that  removal. 

"  4.  While  living  there  I  wrote  my  name  with  the  diminutive, 
Nellie,  but  since  then  have  preferred  to  write  my  baptismal 
name  Ella,  or  merely  the  initial  E.  T.  was  wont  to  use  the 
initials  merely. 

"  At  my  next  sitting,  November  30th,  I  inquired  about  this 
mongrel  address.  '  T.  was  not  strong  enough,'  [differences  of 
clearness  are  often  attributed  to  differences  of  "  strength "  in 
the  communicating  "  spirit."  H.H.]  said  Phinuit,  '  to  direct 
where  the  letter  should  be  sent,  but  he  thought  your  cousin 
David  would  attend  to  your  getting  it.  Your  other  friends  here 
[in  the  "  spirit  world."  H.H.]  helped  us  on  the  rest  of  the  ad- 
dress.' '  But  they  would  not  tell  you  to  send  to  Reading.'  '  Yes, 
they  would,  they  did.  It  was  Mary  told  us  that.'  '  Nonsense,' 
said  I,  thinking  of  a  sister  of  that  name.  '  Not  Mary  in  the 
body.  Mary  in  the  spirit.'  '  But  I  have  no  such  friend.'  '  Yes, 
you  have.  It  was  Mary  L.—  Mary  E.— Mary  E.  Parker  told  us 
that.'  I  then  recalled  a  little  playmate  of  that  name,  a  next  door 
neighbor,  who  moved  away  from  Reading  when  I  was  ten  years 
old,  and  of  whose  death  I  learned  a  few  years  later.  I  had 


Ch.  XXIX]  Hodgson's  First  Sitting  409 

scarcely  thought  of  her  for  twenty  years.  The  '  E.'  in  the  name 
I  hare  not  verified." 

The  address  of  this  letter  proves  one  of  six  things,  or  some 
seventh  thing  unimaginable  in  the  present  state  of  our  know- 
ledge. Of  the  five  possible  solutions  which  will  the  reader 
who  does  not  prefer  to  suspend  his  judgment,  accept  as  strain- 
ing the  probabilities  least?  Each  strains  them  some.  They 
are:  (I)  Mrs.  Piper  fooled  somebody.  The  solution  is  out  of 
date.  (II)  Mrs.  Piper  patched  together  reminiscences  lying 
latent  in  Miss  Wilson's  mind,  and  unknown  to  her  supralim- 
inal  self.  (Ill)  Mrs.  Piper  had  tapped  incarnate  minds 
other  than  Miss  Wilson's.  (IV)  Mrs.  Piper  had  an  inflow 
from  the  cosmic  consciousness  (an  idea  which  everybody  men- 
tions with  respect  but  nobody  has  yet  tried  persistently  to 
apply)  of  knowledge  which  had  once  been  part  of  Miss  Wil- 
son's individuality,  but  had  lost  that  connection,  though  re- 
connectable  with  her  mind  or  any  mind  under  favorable  cir- 
cumstances. The  "favorable  circumstances,"  so  far  as  we 
can  guess,  were  a  desire  somewhere  in  that  cosmic  mind, 
presumably  in  the  portion  of  it  constituting  a  postcarnate 
Mr.  T.  (for  there  is  no  apparent  reason  for  inferring  such  a 
desire  in  Mrs.  Piper's  mind:  that  could  only  be  a  desire  to 
humbug,  and,  as  already  said,  is  out  of  date),  to  address  a 
letter  to  Miss  W.,  and  a  successful  (sufficiently  successful) 
search  for  her  address  among  other  portions  of  that  mind. 
(V)  The  spiritistic  theory  as  usually  held,  which  may  not 
extravagantly  be  considered  included  in  IV. 

No  one  of  these  hypotheses  is  very  satisfactory,  but  we  in- 
crease knowledge  mainly  by  unsatisfactory  hypotheses  which 
farther  knowledge  sometimes  modifies  until  they  become  sat- 
isfactory. 

R.  Hodgson.    First  Sitting.    May  Ith,  1887.    (Pr.yiTI,60.) 

[From  notes  made  on  return  to  my  rooms  immediately  after 
the  sitting.] 

"  Phinuit  began,  after  the  usual  introduction,  by  describing 

[correctly.  H.H.]  members  of  my  family Phinuit  tried  to  get 

a  name  beginning  with  '  R,'  but  failed.  [A  little  sister  of  mine, 
named  Rebecca,  died  when  I  was  very  young,  I  think  less  than 
eighteen  months  old.] 

"  Phinuit  mentioned  the  name  '  Fred.'  I  said  that  it  might  be 
my  cousin.  '  He  says  you  went  to  school  together.  He  goes  on 


410  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

jumping-frogs,  and  laughs.  He  says  he  used  to  get  the  better 
of  you.  He  had  convulsive  movements  before  his  death,  strug- 
gles. He  went  off  in  a  sort  of  spasm.  You  were  not  there.' 
[My  cousin  Fred  far  excelled  any  other  person  that  I  have  seen 
in  the  games  of  leap-frog,  fly  the  garter,  etc.  He  took  very  long 
flying  jumps,  and  whenever  he  played,  the  game  was  lined  by 
crowds  of  schoolmates  to  watch  him.  He  injured  his  spine  in  a 
gymnasium  . . .  lingered  for  a  fortnight,  with  occasional  spas- 
modic convulsions,  in  one  of  which  he  died.]  Phinuit  described 
a  lady,  in  general  terms,  dark  hair,  dark  eyes,  slim  figure,  etc., 
and  said  she  was  much  closer  to  me  than  any  other  person :  that 

she  '  died  slowly It  was  a  great  pain  to  both  of  you  that  you 

weren't  there.  She  would  have  sent  you  a  message,  if  she  had 
known  she  was  going.  She  had  two  rings ;  one  was  buried  with 
her  body;  the  other  ought  to  have  gone  to  you.  The  second  part 
of  her  first  name  is — sie.'  [True,  with  the  exception  of  the 

statement  about  the  rings,  which  may  or  may  not  be  true No 

ring  ever  passed  between  the  lady  and  myself After  trying  in 

vain  to  '  hear  distinctly '  the  first  part  of  the  name,  Phinuit  gave 
up  the  attempt,  and  asked  me  what  the  first  name  was.  I  told 
him.  I  shall  refer  to  it  afterwards  as  '  Q.']  " 

At  Hodgson's  second  sitting,  November  18th,  1887,  Phinuit 
referred  to  the  beautiful  teeth  of  "Q."  and  Hodgson  says: 
"  <  Q.'s '  teeth  were  not  beautiful." 

R.  Hodgson.    Fourth  Sitting.    December  ±th,  1887. 
(Pr.VIII,63f.) 

" Information  purporting  to  have  been  received  from 

'  Q.'    The  chief  new  matter  was : 

"(a)  That  I  had  given  her  a  book,  'Dr.  Phinuit'  thinks,  of 
poems,  and  I  had  written  her  name  in  it,  in  connection  with  her 
birthday.  [Correct.] 

"(6)  . . .  [Correct.  This  includes  a  reference  to  circumstances 
under  which  I  had  a  very  special  conversation  with  '  Q.'  I 
think  it  impossible  that  '  Q.'  could  have  spoken  of  this  to  any 
other  person.  It  occurred  in  Australia  in  1875.] 

"(c)  That  she  'left  the  body'  in  England,  and  that  I  was 
across  the  country.  [This  is  incorrect.  '  Q.'  died  in  Australia. 
I  was  in  England.]" 

Here  (a)  and  (&)  go  strongly  for  telepathy  from  the 
sitter,  and  (c)  goes  just  as  strongly  against  it. 

"  He  referred  to  a  church  to  which  both  '  Q.'  and  myself  used 
to  go,  and  then  asked  if  it  was  in  '  Hanover  Square.'  I  replied, 
No,  whereupon  he  told  me  not  to  note  anything  until  he  got  it 
'  clearer.' 

" '  Dr.  Phinuit '  then  charged  me  with  weighing  too  much 
who  he  was,  where  he  came  from,  etc.,  while  he  was  trying  to 


Ch.  XXIX]    Hannah  Wilde,  J.  F.  Brown,  "  Aunt  Kate  "   411 

give  me  information,  and  said  that  this  harassed  and  confused 
him.  I  should,  he  said,  be  as  '  negative '  as  possible  during  the 
sitting.  [The  charge  was  justified,  as  I  had  actually  drifted 
into  the  consideration  of  what  Phinuit  was,  etc.]  " 

This  series  of  sittings  continued  the  famous  (?)  Hannah 
Wilde  communications  (Pr.  VIII,  69-84),  which  included  a 
vast  number  of  things  that  were  so,  and  one  apparently  most 
important  thing,  that  was  not,  namely,  a  letter  written  by 
Phinuit  which  purported  to  be  a  copy  of  a  sealed  letter  left  by 
Miss  Wilde,  and  had  no  relation  whatever  to  it.  See  the  sim- 
ilar case  of  the  Myers  letter.  Chapter  XLI. 

There  are  some  sittings  of  which  Hodgson  says  (Pr.  VIII, 
85): 

"  Mr.  John  F.  Brown,  a  member  of  our  Society . . .  writes  to 
me  on  February  20th,  1891,  that  he  is  fully  convinced  that  Mrs. 
Piper's  dealings  with  him  have  been  false  and  fraudulent 
throughout.  His  opinion,  I  believe,  is  that  Mrs.  Piper  pretends 
to  go  into  trance,  proceeds  by  guesswork,  questioning,  etc.,  and 
adds  such  information  as  she  has  been  able  to  obtain  by  secret 
inquiry  beforehand  concerning  the  sitters.  I  understand  that  he 
attributes  importance  to  the  details  of  all  his  visits  to  Mrs. 
Piper,  and  his  accounts  are  therefore  given  in  full." 

All  that  about  "secret  inquiry"  now  seems  ludicrous.  I 
quote  this  allusion  and  a  few  others  of  the  same  kind  to 
show  both  sides.  I  have  read  over  Mr.  Brown's  details,  and 
find  them  more  interesting  than  I  fear  he  did,  but  less  inter- 
esting than  some  others  which  would  better  occupy  our  limited 
space— than  this,  for  instance  (Pr.  VIII,  92-3) : 

"  5,  Boylston-place,  March  6th,  1889. 

"  Mr.  Robertson  James  has  just  called  here  on  return  from  a 
sitting  with  Mrs.  P.,  during  which  he  was  informed  by  Mrs. 
P.— entranced— that  '  Aunt  Kate '  had  died  about  2  or  2.30  in 
the  morning.  Aunt  Kate  was  also  referred  to  as  Mrs.  Walsh. 

"  Mrs.  Walsh  has  been  ill  for  some  time  and  has  been  ex- 
pected during  the  last  few  days  to  die  at  any  hour.  This  is 
written  before  any  despatch  has  been  received  informing  of  the 
death,  in  presence  of  the  following: — 

"  RICHARD  HODGSON. 
"  WILLIAM  JAMES. 
"  ROBERTSON  JAMES. 

"  On  reaching  home  an  hour  later  I  found  a  telegram  as 
follows : — '  Aunt  Kate  passed  away  a  few  minutes  after  mid- 
night.—E.  R.  WALSH.' 

"(Signed)  WM.  JAMES. 


412  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

,  "  Mrs.  William  James,  who  accompanied  Mr.  Kobertson  James 
to  the  sitting  on  March  6th,  writes  as  follows: — 

"  18,  Garden-street,  CAMBRIDGE,  March  28th,  1889. 
"  Concerning  the  sitting  mentioned  above  on  March  6th,  I 
may  add  that  the  '  control '  said,  when  mentioning  that  Aunt 
Kate  had  died,  that  I  would  find  '  a  letter  or  telegram '  when  I 
got  home,  saying  she  was  gone. 

"  ALICE  H.  JAMES. 

"  July,  1890. 

"It  may  be  worth  while  to  add  that  early  at  this  sitting  I 
inquired,  '  How  is  Aunt  Kate  ? '  The  reply  was, '  She  is  poorly.' 
This  reply  disappointed  me,  from  its  baldness.  Nothing  more 
was  said  about  Aunt  Kate  till  towards  the  close  of  the  sitting, 
when  I  again  said,  '  Can  you  tell  me  nothing  more  about  Aunt 
Kate?'  The  medium  suddenly  threw  back  her  head  and  said 
in  a  startled  way,  '  Why,  Aunt  Kate's  here.  All  around  me  I 
hear  voices  saying,  "  Aunt  Kate  has  come." '  Then  followed  the 
announcement  that  she  had  died  very  early  that  morning,  and 
on  being  pressed  to  give  the  time,  shortly  after  two  was  named. 

"  A.  H.  J." 

And  here  is  a  manifestation  eight  months  after  Mrs.  Walsh's 
death,  of  a  control  claiming  her  name  and  impersonating  her. 
The  reader  will  probably  agree  that  Hodgson  was  a  pretty 
good  reporter,  and  that  if  Mrs.  Piper  was  not  really  "  pos- 
sessed "  (by  a  cosmic  inflow  of  Mrs.  Walsh's  personality?) 
Mrs.  Piper  or  her  subliminal  self,  whatever  that  may  mean, 
was  a  pretty  good  dramatic  author  and  actress. 

R.  Hodgson.    November  1th,  1889.     (Pr.VIII,93-4.) 

[From  a  letter  written  to  Professor  W.  James  on  the  day  of 
the  sitting.] 

"  Mrs.  D.  and  I  had  sitting  to-day  at  Arlington  Heights,  and 
the  usurpation  by  '  Kate  Walsh '  was  extraordinary.  She  (Mrs. 
Piper)  had  got  hold  of  my  hands,  and  I  had  to  make  a  few 
fragmentary  notes  afterwards  of  the  remarks,  themselves  frag- 
mentary, which  she  made.  The  personality  seemed  very  intense, 
and  spoke  in  effortful  whispers. 

"' William— William— God  bless  you.'  Sitter:  'Who  are 
you?'  'Kate — Walsh.'  S.  'I  know  you.'  'Help  me— help 

me '  [Taking  [i.e.,  Mrs.  Piper  "taking,"  &c.  H.H.]  my 

right  hand  with  her  right,  and  passing  it  to  her  left  and  making 
me  take  hold  of  her  left  hand.]  '  That  hand's  dead — dead — this 
one's  alive '  [i.e.,  the  right] — '  help  me.' 

"  The  left  hand  . . .  was  cooler  than  either  of  my  hands,  while 
the  right  hand  was  warmer  than  either  of  my  hands  [the  im- 
plication being  that  Mrs.  Piper  was  possessed  by  Mrs.  Walsh. 
H.H.] 


Ch.  XXIX]          "Aunt  Kate"  Continued  413 

" '  I'm  alive — I'm  alive — Albert's  coming  over  soon.  He  can't 
stay — poor  boy — poor  boy — Albert — Albert — Alfred — Albert — I 

know  you — Alice — Alice — William — Alice '  S. '  Yes,  I  know. 

I'll  tell  them.  You  remember  me.  I  stayed  with  you  in  New 
York.'  '  Yes,  I  know.  But,  oh,  I  can't  remember.  I'm  so  cold 
— I'm  so  cold.  Oh,  help  me — help  me' — [making  tremulous 
movements  of  hands].  S.  '  I  know.  I'll  tell  them.  You  remem- 
bor  me ;  my  name's  Hodgson.'  '  Yes.  Mr.  Hodgson.  Where  are 
the  girls?  Yes.  You  had  fish  for  breakfast  on  the  second  day, 
didn't  you  ? '  S.  '  I  don't  remember  very  well.'  '  And  the  tea — 
who  was  it  spilt  the  cup  of  tea?  Was  it  you  or  William?'  [I 
think  I  remember  something  about  the  tea,  but  not  very  clearly. 
R.H.]  '  You  were  in  the  corner  room — bedroom — upstairs. 
Were  you  cold?  Then  there  was  some  blancmange — you  didn't 
like  that.  No.  It  was  cream — Bavarian  cream.  [Is  all  this 
Mrs.  Piper,  or  is  it  Shakspere,  or  is  it  the  spirit  of  a  fussy  old 
lady?  H.H.]  Albert — poor  boy;  he's  coming  soon.  William — 
[something  about  arranging  the  property] — William — God  bless 
him.' 

"  The  above  was  much  less  than  was  really  said.  But  that  was 
the  sort  of  thing,  and  nothing  a  la  mode  Phinuit  at  all.  It  was 
the  most  strikingly  personal  thing  I  have  seen." 

This,  some  commentators  want  us  to  believe,  was  "  another 
personality"  of  Mrs.  Piper — if  Phinuit  was.  Four  in  the 
case  of  Sally  Beauchamp  are  well  established,  and  eleven  in 
the  case  of  Dr.  Wilson's  patient  (Pr.  XVIII).  I  wonder 
how  many  Dr.  Prince  would  consider  a  probable  number,  and 
at  what  number  the  spiritistic  hypothesis  would  begin  to 
appear  easier  than  the  divided  personality  one. 

James  thus  commented  on  Hodgson's  letter  (Pr.  VIII,  94) : 

"  The  '  Kate  Walsh '  freak  is  very  interesting.  The  first  men- 
tion of  her  by  Phinuit  was  when  she  was  living,  three  years  or 
more  ago,  when  she  had  written  to  my  wife  imploring  her  not 
to  sit  for  development  [i.e.,  as  a  medium.  H.H.].  Phinuit  knew 
this  in  some  incomprehensible  way.  A  year  later  [in  a  sitting] 
with  Margaret  Qibbens  [sister  of  Mrs.  James],  I  present,  Phi- 
nuit alluded  jocosely  to  this  fear  of  hers  again,  and  made  some 
derisive  remarks  about  her  unhappy  marriage,  calling  her  an 
'  old  crank,'  etc.  Her  death  was  announced  last  spring,  as  you 
remember.  In  September,  sitting  with  me  and  my  wife,  Mrs. 
Piper  was  suddenly  '  controlled '  by  her  spirit,  who  spoke  directly 
with  much  impressiveness  of  manner,  and  great  similarity  of 
temperament  to  herself.  Platitudes.  She  said  Henry  Wyckoff 
had  experienced  a  change,  and  that  Albert  was  coming  over 
soon ;  nothing  definite  about  either.  Queer  business !  " 


414:  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

(7.  W .  F.}  M.D.  Providence,  R.  I.,  May  11th,  1889.  (Pr.VIH,98f .) 
[Extracts  from  a  letter  to  James.] 

[The  sittings]  "  rather  force  me  to  believe  that  Dr.  P.  is  not 

a  fictitious  personage Dr.  P.  has  partially  forgotten  his 

French,  so  far  as  speaking  it  goes,  yet  I  am  convinced  that  he 
understands  all  that  I  say  in  that  language,  and  that  Mrs.  P. 
does  not,  from  my  tests  of  her  capacity,  and  she  impresses  me  as 
being  a  truly  honest  woman 

"  Q. :  '  How  long  do  you  think  I  shall  live? '  (He  had  pretty 
well  described  my  physical  condition.)  He  answered  this  ques- 
tion by  counting  in  French  on  the  medium's  fingers  to  eleven. 
Q. :  '  What  influence  has  my  mind  on  what  you  tell  me  ? '  A. :  '  I 
get  nothing  from  your  mind;  I  can't  read  your  mind  any  more 
than  I  can  see  through  a  stone  wall.'  He  added  that  he  saw 
objectively  the  persons  of  whom  he  spoke  to  me,  and  that  they 

conveyed  to  him  the  messages  given The  names  of  several 

persons  he  called  up  he  spelt  in  French,  as  Robert,  not  being 
able,  seemingly,  to  pronounce  them  well  in  English. . . . '  How  do 
you  get  what  you  tell  me  about  myself;  my  length  of  life,  my 
going  to  Europe,  etc.  ? '  A. :  '  I  get  it  from  your  astral  light.' 
[He  generally  says  from  spirits.  H.H.]  . . .  The  doctor  has  em- 
phasized my  own  mediumistic  power  at  each  seance,  and  has 
said  that  I  would  surely  write.  '  Get  a  planchette,  and  I  will 
come  to  your  own  house  as  a  test.' " 

As  already  said,  and  probably  will  be  said  again,  people  with 
mediumistic  aptitudes  get  good  sittings. 

A  good  illustration  of  the  fallibility  of  the  communications 
isinPr.  VIII,  114: 

Miss  A.  A.B.,  Boston.    January  or  February,  1888. 
"  I  went  to  Mrs.  Piper  chiefly  to  see  if  she  could  tell  me  of 
some  china  we  had  lost.    It  had  been  stored  during  a  long  ab- 
sence in  Europe,  and  upon  our  return  we  could  not  find  it 

She  said,  '  You  have  lost  some  china,  and  you  feel  very  badly 
about  it.  It  was  taken  from  your  home  by  a  man  who  has  been 

in  the  employ  of  your  family  a  long  time '    Several  months 

after  Mrs.  Piper  told  me  this,  the  china  was  found  precisely 
where  it  was  first  placed,  and  where  it  had  been  overlooked,  as 
the  box  was  believed  to  contain  something  else." 

Apparently  telepathy  of  the  sitter's  suspicion.  And  here 
are  two  of  the  reverse  (Pr.  VIII,  115)  : 

" '  Did  you  ever  own  a  bird  ? '  '  Yes.'  '  It  is  a  parrot,  and  is 
flying  all  about  your  head  now.'  '  Do  birds,  then,  have  another 
life?'  'I  tell  you  this — anything  that  you  have  had  here  and 
want  there  again,  you  will  have.  You  will  have  that  parrot 
again.'  I  never  owned  but  one  bird,  and  that  was  a  gray  parrot." 


Ch.  XXIX]    Revs.  W.  H.  and  M.  J.  Savage  415 

The  dramatic  character  of  the  second  makes  it  a  double 
strain  on  the  telepathic  theory  (Pr.  VIII,  104f.)  : 

Rev.  W.  H.  Savage.    December  28th,  1888. 

" '  Ah !  Here  is  somebody  from  outside — he  says  his  name  is 
Robert  West.  He  wants  to  send  a  message  to  your  brother.' 
Then,  after  a  moment,  '  I  wrote  an — he  is  writing  it  and  I  am 
reading  for  you — an  AR — TI — article  A — G — A  against  his  W 
—work  in  the  AD— V— Advance.  What  the  dickens  is  the  Ad- 
vance f '  I  said, '  It  is  a  paper.'  Then  she  continued, '  I  thought 
he  was  wrong,  but — he  was — right,  and  I  repent,  he  was  right. 

I  want  you  to  tell  him  for  me.    I  am  sorry 1  want  to  right 

all  the  wrong  I  did  in  the  body.'  I  said  to  her,  '  Can  you  see 
him  ? '  '  Yes,'  she  replied.  '  How  does  he  look  ? '  I  asked.  '  He 
has  grayish  blue  eyes,  a  beard,  a  rather  prominent  nose,  a  firm 
mouth,  a  large  forehead,  and  he  brushed  his  hair  up,  so,'  brush- 
ing my  hair  with  her  hand,  to  show  the  fashion  of  his.  '  He  is 
of  medium  build,  rather  tall.  He  died  of  hemorrhage  of  the 
kidneys.' . . .  The  description  of  Mr.  West  is  photographic  in  its 
truth.  His  appearance  at  our  interview  was  entirely  unheralded 
by  anything  leading  up  to  it 

"  Mr.  M.  J.  Savage  writes  on  June  26th,  1890  :— 

"  Mr.  West . . .  became  editor  of  The  Advance.  While  on  that 
paper  he  wrote  a  severe  criticism  on  me,  my  doctrines,  and  my 
work.  My  brother  had  not  seen  this  criticism,  and  did  not  even 
know  about  it. 

"  Neither  of  us  knew  the  cause  of  his  death.  On  writing  to 
The  Advance,  after  this  sitting,  the  correctness  of  Mrs.  Piper's 
statement  as  to  his  death  was  confirmed. 

"  Mr.  W.  H.  Savage  further  writes  July  5th,  1890:— 

"  1.  When  Mrs.  P.  began  speaking  of  Mr.  West,  she  turned 
with  a  surprised  look,  as  at  an  unlocked  for  interruption,  with 
the  remark,  '  Ah !  here  is,  etc.'  [as  above.  H.H.] 

"  2.  When  I  asked  for  a  description  she  turned  again  in  the 
same  direction  and  said,  '  Hold  up  your  head  and  let  me  look 
at  you.'  Then  she  went  on  to  describe  as  given  in  the  statement. 

"  3.  She  gave  the  date  of  death  correctly,  as  well  as  cause. 

"  4.  I  did  not  know  that  West  was  dead. 

"  5.  As  my  brother  says,  I  had  never  heard  of  the  attack  on 
my  brother  of  which  the  interview  speaks." 

Rev.  M.  J.  Savage.    January  15th,  1889    (Pr.VIII.105f.) 

"  On  January  15th,  1889,  the  Rev.  M.  J.  Savage  had  a  sitting 
with  Mrs.  Piper,  in  the  course  of  which  Rev.  Robert  West  pur- 
ported to  communicate,  stating  that  his  body  was  buried  at 
Alton,  111.,  and  giving  the  text  on  his  tombstone.  Mr.  Savage 
was  unaware  of  either  of  these  facts  at  the  time  of  the  sitting. 
He  soon  afterwards  ascertained  that  Rev.  Robert  West's  grave 
was  at  Alton,  111.,  but  he  did  not  ascertain  the  text  on  the  tomb- 
stone. He  recently  informed  me  of  the  circumstance,  and  I 


416  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

have  since  obtained  from  Mr.  J.  A.  Cousley,  editor  of  the  Daily 
Telegraph,  Alton,  111.,  a  copy  of  the  inscriptions  on  the  tomb- 
stone. I  requested  Mr.  Savage  then  to  furnish  me  with  the 
text  which  had  been  given  to  him  through  Mrs.  Piper.  Yester- 
day he  found  his  notes  made  on  the  day  of  the  sitting,  and  read 
me  the  text,  which  agreed  with  that  sent  to  me  from  Alton — viz., 
'  Fervent  in  spirit,  serving  the  Lord/  R.  HODGSON. 

"  The  above  is  correct.  (Signed)  M.  J.  SAVAGE. 

"  July  25th,  1890." 

The  following,  if  genuine  (and  there  seems  no  more  reason 
to  doubt  it  than  any  other  Piper  manifestation),  looks  more 
like  a  case  of  "possession"  than  perhaps  any  other  case  of 
hers: 

Miss  A.  M.  R.    (Pr.VIII,lllf.) 

"  BOSTON,  February  Tilth,  1888. 

"  At  the  first  sitting  I  tried  to  get  some  information  regarding 
a  friend  who  had  then  been  dead  about  three  months.  I  was 
told  by  Dr.  Phinuit . . .  that  I  probably  would  not  get  anything 
satisfactory  for  some  time,  and  was  advised  to  wait  about  eight 
months.  At  the  expiration  of  that  time  I  sat  again,  and  at  the 
third  sitting  from  that  time  (I  think  my  dates  are  correct)  the 
medium  was  controlled  for  a  few  minutes  during  the  hour  by 
what  purported  to  be  the  spirit  of  my  friend  who,  however, 
seemed  to  have  such  imperfect  control  that  he  could  only  speak 
in  a  choked,  whispering  voice.  At  the  next  sitting  he  was 
stronger,  and  now  is  able  to  take  control  and  talk  easily  and 
distinctly  for  perhaps  half  an  hour.  I  have  received  the  impres- 
sion, from  what  has  been  told  me  through  the  medium,  that  for 
some  months  after  the  death  of  my  friend  he  did  not  sufficiently 
understand  the  conditions  of  his  new  existence,  or  the  conditions 
under  which  he  could  return,  to  be  able  to  reach  me  through  any 
medium." 

"  BOSTON,  December  Vlth,  1888. 

" He  used  to  be  lame He  has  often  said  to  me,  '  You 

know  my  lame  leg ;  well,  it  is  all  well  now.' ...  He  tried  very 
hard  [i.e.,  acting  through  the  medium.  H.H.]  to  raise  himself 
from  the  chair  without  succeeding  at  first.  I  told  him  he  had 
better  not  try,  as  it  might  be  too  much  for  the  medium.  He  in- 
sisted on  trying,  however,  but  commenced  rubbing  one  leg,  and 
asked  me  if  I  could  remember  which  leg  was  lame.  [This 
strange  sort  of  ignorance  is  very  characteristic  of  "  controls." 
H.H.]  At  last  he  raised  himself,  but  instead  of  walking,  as  Dr. 
P[hinuit]  would  do,  he  leaned  heavily  on  me,  and  seemed  to  hop 
or  hitch  along  on  one  foot  exactly  as  a  person  would  do  who 
could  use  only  one  foot  in  walking.  After  he  came  back,  he 
dropped  into  the  chair  exhausted,  and  said  that  was  the  hardest 
work  he  had  done  since  coming  back,  and  that  it  was  too  much 


Ch.  XXIX]    Miss  A.  M.  E.'s  Lame  Control  417 

of  the  real  life  for  him;  he  did  not  like  it He  says  that  his 

spiritual  body  was  not  lame,  but  that  he  had  to  come  back  that 

way  so  I  would  recognize  him " 

"  BOSTON,  June  23rd,  1890. 

"  At  each  sitting  I  have  conversed  with  two  personalities,  Dr. 
P.,  the  regular  control,  and  the  control  which  claims  to  be  the 

spirit  of  my  friend  H When  my  friend  H.  takes  control  of 

the  medium  it  seems  to  be  quite  a  different  personality,  although 
there  is  something  in  the  voice  or  manner  of  speaking  that  is  like 
Dr.  P.  The  voice,  however,  is  not  nearly  so  loud.  When  I 
asked  him  once  why  this  was,  he  told  me  that  Dr.  P.  was  right 
by  him  and  that  he  could  not  stay  a  moment  without  his  help. 
In  a  great  many  little  ways  he  is  quite  like  what  my  friend  used 
to  be  when  living,  so  much  so  that  I  am  afraid  it  would  take  a 
great  deal  of  explanation  to  make  me  believe  that  his  identical 
self  had  not  something  to  do  with  it. ...  This,  too,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  he  does  not  always  know  how  to  spell  his  own  name 
correctly,  though  I  am  happy  to  be  able  to  state  that  he  cer- 
tainly knows  what  his  name  is.  He  says  the  longer  he  is  away 
the  more  he  forgets  about  things  in  this  life,  though  he  does  not 

forget  his  friends He  insists  that  he  can  see  me  in  my  room, 

and  often  knows  what  I  am  doing.  At  one  time  he  asked  me 
how  I  liked  that  little  drab-colored  book  that  I  had  been  reading 
with  another  person.  There  was  a  particular  book  which  I  had 
been  reading  aloud  with  a  friend,  but  it  was  covered  with  brown 
paper,  as  I  remember,  and  I  had  no  idea  what  the  cloth  cover 
was.  On  reaching  home  I  took  off  the  paper  cover,  and  found 
that  it  was  a  drab-colored  cloth  cover.  I  may  have  seen  the 
book  when  new,  and  before  the  paper  cover  was  put  on,  but  if  I 
did  I  had  completely  forgotten  about  it." 

These  subliminal  memories  are  frequent.  The  mediums 
often  get  them  contrary  to  the  supraliminal  convictions  of  the 
sitters.  Do  they  get  them  from  the  sitter's  mind,  or  have  they 
passed  into  the  cosmic  mind  via  postcarnate  souls  ? 

This  account  concludes  (Pr.  VIII,  113-4) : 

"  When  I  talk  with  H.  about  the  philosophy  of  spirit  return, 
he  always  seems  more  or  less  puzzled,  and  generally  refers  me  to 
Dr.  P.,  saying  that  he  knows  more  about  such  things.  He  hardly 
knew  at  first  what  I  meant  by  the  medium,  but  says  that  he  has 
for  the  time  being  another  organism,  and  that  is  about  all  he 
knows.  When  he  asked  me  why  I  did  not  come  oftener  to  see 
him,  I  explained  to  him,  somewhat  as  I  would  to  a  child,  that  the 
medium  was  not  always  at  command,  and  that  I  had  to  pay 
money  for  a  sitting  with  her.  He  said,  '  I  am  an  expensive 
article,  then  ? '  I  replied,  '  Yes,  you  spirits  are  quite  expensive 
articles.' " 


418  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

Mr.  F.  8.  8.     (Pr.Vin,119.) 

"(Question:  Well,  Sarah  is  her  middle  name.  What  is  her 
other?  Could  not  answer.)  [Phinuit  says  (H.H.)]  '  She  is  dif- 
ferent from  your  mother;  has  very  original  ways  of  thinking, 
and  ideas.  She  is  very  positive;  set  as  the  hills;  and  doesn't 
believe  <in  me.  She  is  a  crank,  and  so  am  I,  but  she  will 
have  to  be  a  good  deal  bigger  than  she  is  to  scare  me.'. . . 
My  aunt  had  given  several  sittings  to  [had  several  with?  H.H.] 
Mrs.  P.,  but  with  no  success;  hence  she  had  become  somewhat 
skeptical ;  hence  the  medium's  words,  '  She  does  not  believe  in 
me.'  Mrs.  P.  had  no  possible  means  of  associating  my  aunt  and 
me,  to  my  knowledge." 

Mr.  M.  N.     (Pr.VIII,120f.) 

"  Briefly  stated,  the  three  cases  of  prophesying  which  I  have 
experienced  with  Mrs.  Piper,  and  which  have  come  true,  are  as 
follows : — 

" She  told  me  that  a  death  of  a  near  relative  of  mine 

would  occur  in  about  six  weeks,  from  which  I  should  realize 
some  pecuniary  advantages. . . .  My  wife,  to  whom  I  was  then  en- 
gaged, went  to  see  Mrs.  Piper  a  few  days  afterwards,  and  she 
told  her  (my  wife)  that  my  father  would  die  in  a  few  weeks. 

"  About  the  middle  of  May  my  father  died  very  suddenly  in 

London Previous  to  this  Mrs.  Piper  (as  Dr.  Phinuit)  had 

told  me  that  she  would  endeavor  to  influence  my  father  about 
certain  matters  connected  with  his  will  before  he  died.  Two 
days  after  I  received  the  cable  announcing  his  death,  my  wife 
and  I  went  to  see  Mrs.  Piper,  and  she  [Phinuit]  spoke  of  his 
presence,  and  his  sudden  arrival  in  the  spirit-world,  and  said 
that  he  (Dr.  Phinuit)  had  endeavored  to  persuade  him  in  those 
matters  while  my  father  was  sick.  Dr.  Phinuit  told  me  the 
state  of  the  will,  and  described  the  principal  executor,  and  said 
that  he  (the  executor)  would  make  a  certain  disposition  in  my 
favor,  subject  to  the  consent  of  the  two  other  executors,  when  I 
got  to  London,  Eng.  Three  weeks  afterwards  I  arrived  in  Lon- 
don; found  the  principal  executor  to  be  the  man  Dr.  Phinuit 
had  described.  The  will  went  materially  as  he  had  stated . . .  and 
my  sister,  who  was  chiefly  at  my  father's  bedside  the  last  three 
days  of  his  life,  told  me  that  he  had  repeatedly  complained  of  the 
presence  of  an  old  man  at  the  foot  of  his  bed,  who  annoyed  him 
by  discussing  his  private  affairs. 

"  The  second  instance  I  would  give  you  is  as  follows : — 

"  Dr.  Phinuit  stated  that  I  would  receive  a  professional  offer 
within  two  weeks  by  letter,  to  my  present  address,  with  the  name 
of  the  manager's  firm  on  the  left  hand  corner  of  the  envelope, 
and  (as  far  as  I  could  understand  him)  either  from  a  man 
named  French,  or  else  from  a  Frenchman.  Within  the  time 
stated  the  letter  came,  answering  to  the  description  of  its  appear- 
ance, and  to  this  address,  but  the  offer  was  from  a  Frenchman. 


Ch.  XXIX]  Mr.  J.  Rogers  Rich  419 

"  The  third  is  as  follows:— 

"  Dr.  Phinuit  stated  on  one  occasion  that  some  relative  was 
suffering  at  that  time  from  a  sore  or  wounded  thumb.  We  knew 

of  no  one  at  the  time Shortly  after  this  conversation  my  aunt 

stated  that  she  had  received  a  letter  from  cousins '  Oh,  by- 

the-bye  . . .  Jennie  has . . .  injured  her  thumb  in  some  machine.' 
. . .  Dr.  Phinuit  cured  me,  or  apparently  did  so,  by  a  prescription 
sent  me  by  Mrs.  Piper,  of  an  internal  trouble  from  which  I  had 
suffered  for  eighteen  months." 

The  following  report  (Pr.  VIII,  126f.)  by  Mr.  J.  Rogers 
Rich,  made  from  contemporary  notes  of  the  sittings,  is  among 
the  best,  and  illustrates  (by  the  converse)  what  has  been  re- 
marked more  than  once — that  scientific  (and  consequently 
skeptical?)  people  do  not  make  the  best  sitters.  This  artist 
made  an  admirable  one. 

"  I  had  always  had  a  dislike  for  any  '  mediums '  or  '  spiritual- 
ists'  of  every  kind,  but  on  meeting  this  woman  I  was  at  once 
attracted  to  her  by  the  simple  and  sympathetic  manner  which 
she  showed  on  greeting  me,  and  I  felt  a  delicacy  about  making 
an  appointment  for  a  sitting,  she  seeming  to  me  too  gentle  and 
refined  for  a  business  of  this  sort.  I  was  at  once  struck  with  the 
peculiar  light,  or  inward  look,  in  her  eyes.  Her  voice  was  full 
and  agreeable,  but  in  every  way  a  'feminine'  voice,  and  there 
was  an  entire  absence  of  any  masculinity  in  her  manner,  which 
I  had  been  expecting  to  find  under  the  circumstances. 

"  My  first  sitting  with  her  was  on  September  6th,  1888.  With 
little  trouble  she  went  into  the  trance . . .  and  after  a  moment's 
silence ...  I  was  startled  by  the  remarkable  change  in  her  voice 
— an  exclamation,  a  sort  of  grunt  of  satisfaction,  as  if  the  person 
had  reached  his  destination  and  gave  vent  to  his  pleasure  thereat 
by  this  sound,  uttered  in  an  unmistakably  male  voice,  but  rather 
husky.  I  was  at  once  addressed  in  French  with, '  Bonjour,  Mon- 
sieur, comment  vous  portez  vous  ? '  to  which  I  gave  answer  in 
the  same  language,  with  which  I  happen  to  be  perfectly  familiar. 
My  answer  was  responded  to  with  a  sort  of  inquiring  grunt, 
much  like  the  French  '  Hein  ? '. . .  Nearly  all  my  interviews  were 
begun  in  the  same  manner. ...  I  was  quite  unwell  with  nervous 

troubles The  first  thing  told  me  was  of  a  '  great  light  behind 

me,  a  good  sign,'  &c.  Then  suddenly  all  my  ills  were  very  clearly 
and  distinctly  explained  and  so  thoroughly  that  I  felt  certain 
that  Mrs.  Piper  herself  would  have  hesitated  to  use  such  plain 
language!  Prescriptions  were  given  to  me  for  the  purchase  of 

herbs,  and  the  manner  of  preparing  them My  profession 

(painting)  was  described,  and  my  particular  talents  and  manner- 
isms in  design  were  mentioned My  mother  was  clearly  de- 
scribed !  She  was  '  beside  me,  dressed  as  in  her  portrait  (painted 


420  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

a  year  or  two  before  her  death),  and  wearing  a  certain  cameo 

pin,  the  portrait  of  my  father.' " 

"Second  Sitting  on  October  5th— . . .  The  'Doctor'  told  me 
of  my  niece  being  frequently  'in  my  surroundings,'  and  that 
she  was  then  at  my  side.  Up  to  this  time  I  had  not  heard  my 
name  mentioned,  so  I  asked  for  it  from  my  niece.  The  '  Doctor ' 
was  again  puzzled  and  said,  '  What  a  funny  name — wait,  I  can- 
not go  so  fast ! '  Then  my  entire  name  was  correctly  spelt  out 
but  entirely  with  the  French  alphabet,  each  separate  letter  being 
clearly  pronounced  in  that  language.  My  niece  had  been  born, 
lived  most  of  her  short  life,  and  died  in  France.  Then  the 
attempt  to  pronounce  my  name  was  amusing — finally  calling  me 
'  Thames  Rowghearce  Reach.'  The  '  Doctor '  never  called  me 
after  that  anything  but '  Reach.' " 

It  is  now  time  for  a  comment  on  Hodgson's  expressions  on 
p.  404  regarding  Phinuit's  French.  Between  there  and  here 
they  have  been  traversed  more  than  once,  this  time,  I  think, 
pretty  strongly :  for  the  spelling  of  a  name  "  entirely  with  the 
French  alphabet,  each  separate  letter  being  clearly  pronounced 
in  that  language,"  is  a  feat  that  few  English-speaking 
students  could  accomplish,  because  the  matter  is  of  little  con- 
sequence, and  generally  neglected.  I  have  been  in  France 
some,  and  have  translated  two  French  books  without  incurring 
critical  censure  that  I  am  aware  of,  and  yet  that  feat  would 
be  far  beyond  me. 

Mr.  Rich's  farther  remarks  on  this  subject  at  the  close  of 
his  account  are  the  most  important  which  it  has  evoked  (Pr. 
VIII,  131) : 

"One  day  Mrs.  Piper  pointed  to  a  plain  gold  ring  on  my 
finger  and  said:  '  C'est  une  alliance,  how  you  call  that?  A  wed- 
•ding  ring,  n'est-ce  pas  ? '  This  was  true.  Now  if  Mrs.  Piper 
had  learned  French  at  school  here  [which  she  did  not  or  any- 
where else.  H.H.]  she  would  most  probably  have  called  this  ring 
•*  un  anneau  de  marriage,'  and  not  have  given  it  the  technical 
name  '  alliance.'  I  several  times  carried  on  a  short  conversation 
in  French,  making  my  observations  in  that  language  and  receiv- 
ing answers  in  the  same,  but  which  were  always  curt,  and  ended 
with  an  expressed  wish  in  broken  English  not  '  to  bodder  about 
French  but  to  speak  in  English.'  I  made  use,  too,  of  certain 
slang  expressions  which  were  apparently  perfectly  understood  but 
answered  in  English,  though  correctly." 

But  to  return  to  Mr.  Rich's  earlier  record  (Pr.  VIII, 
128-9)  : 


Ch.  XXIX]         Mr.  Rich's  Friend  Newell  421 

"November  8th. — . . .  A  friend's  sister  had  met  with  a  loss  by 
fire,  and  wished  to  see  what  could  be  done  towards  tracing  the 
incendiary.  This  lady  had  a  habit  of  coloring  or  bleaching  her 
hair,  of  which  she  had  sent  a  lock  as  a  test.  'Dr.  Phinuit'  at 
first  refused  to  touch  the  hair,  saying  that  it  was  'dead  and 
devilish ! '  As  I  knew  nothing  whatever  of  the  persons  con- 
nected with  the  fire,  I  noted  down  the  descriptions  given,  which 
tallied  perfectly  with  that  of  the  parties  suspected,  as  I  after- 
wards learned. . . .  Breaking  into  the  run  of  conversation,  the 
'  Doctor '  of  a  sudden  said,  '  Hullo,  here's  Newell ! '  (mentioning 
the  name  of  a  friend  who  had  died  some  months  before). 
'  Newell '  is  a  substitute  for  the  real  name.  I  should  add  that 
'  Newell '  had  frequently  purported  to  communicate  directly  with 
his  mother  through  Mrs.  Piper  at  previous  sittings,  but  this  was 
the  first  time  that  any  intimation  of  his  presence  was  given  to 
me.  I  was  totally  unprepared  for  this,  and  said,  '  Who  did  you 
say  ? '  The  name  was  repeated  with  a  strong  foreign  accent,  and 
in  the  familiar  voice  and  tone  of  the  '  Doctor.'  Then  there 
seemed  for  a  moment  to  be  a  mingling  of  voices  as  if  in  dispute, 
followed  by  silence  and  heavy  breathing  of  the  medium.  All  at 
once  I  was  astonished  to  hear,  in  an  entirely  different  tone  and 
in  the  purest  English  accent,  '  Well,  of  all  persons  under  the 
sun,  Rogers  Rich,  what  brought  you  here?  I'm  glad  to  see  you, 
old  fellow?  How  is  X  and  T  and  Z,  and  all  the  boys  at  the 
club?'  Some  names  were  given  which  I  knew  of,  but  their 
owners  I  had  never  met,  and  so  reminded  my  friend  '  Newell,' 
who  recalled  that  he  followed  me  in  college  by  some  years  and 
that  all  his  acquaintances  were  younger  than  I.  I  remarked  an 
odd  movement  of  the  medium  while  under  this  influence;  she 
apparently  was  twirling  a  mustache,  a  trick  which  my  friend 
formerly  practised  much." 

Now  if  all  this  drama  is  telepathy,  it  certainly  is  not  of  the 
"  common  or  garden  variety,"  and  if  "  Newell  "  is  a  secondary 
personality  of  Mrs.  Piper,  it  is  one  of  hundreds  of  instances  of 
that  woman  having  secondary  personalities  who  are  men.  I 
have  read  accounts  of  a  good  many  undoubted  cases  of  sec- 
ondary personality,  and  have  yet  to  read  one  where  the  sex 
was  crossed.  Aren't  these  interpretations  growing  to  look  a 
little  absurd  ? 

Mr.  Rich  now  gets  back  to  Phinuit's  prescription  (Pr.  VIII, 
129-30)  : 

"  I  had  been  following  the  treatment  prescribed  by  the  '  Doc- 
tor,' and  had  prepared  at  my  home  the  herbs,  etc.,  according  to 
his  orders,  as  I  thought.  But  I  found  that  the  medicine  had  not 
the  effect  promised  and  so  told  him.  The  answer  was  that  it  was 


422  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

my  fault  for  '  they  were  not  properly  prepared.'  I  assured  him 
that  they  were,  whereat  he  said  that  '  that  old  nigger  . . .  had  not 
followed  my  directions,  had  used  the  wrong  proportions,  had  for- 
gotten to  watch  the  cooking,  and  was  a  fool  anyway ! '  On  in- 
quiry I  found  this  to  be  the  fact,  for  she  had  understood  me  to 
say  a  quart  instead  of  a  pint,  and  confessed  to  having  forgotten 
the  mixture  and  allowed  it  to  boil  down  but '  thought  it  wouldn't 
make  any  difference.' 

"  A  lock  of  hair  belonging  to  a  friend  who  is  quite  noted  for 
his  amusing  self-conceit  was  greeted  with  a  laugh  and  recognized 
as  belonging  to  '  His  Koyal  Highness,'  or  the  '  Duke  B,'  calling 
him  by  his  real  name  and  attaching  the  titles  by  way  of 
'  chaff.' 

"  Some  prophecies  were  made  to  '  occur  soon,'  but  I  regret  to 
say  that  the  '  Doctor's '  idea  of  '  soonness '  and  mine  differ 
greatly — for  they  are  not  yet  fulfilled. 

"  June  3rd,  1889. — My  ninth  sitting.  This  time  I  asked  to 
communicate  with  my  friend  '  Newell,'  previously  referred  to  in 
my  fourth  sitting.  The  '  Doctor '  said,  *  I'll  send  for  him,'  and 
kept  on  talking  with  me  for  a  while.  Then  he  said,  '  Here's 
Newell,  and  he  wants  to  talk  with  you  "  Reach,"  so  I'll  go  about 
my  business  whilst  you  are  talking  with  him,  and  will  come  back 
again  later.'  Then  followed  a  confusion  of  words,  but  I  clearly 
heard  the  voice  of  the  '  Doctor '  saying : '  Here,  Newell,  you  come 
by  the  hands  while  I  go  out  by  the  feet,'  which  apparently  being 
accomplished  in  the  proper  manner,  my  name  was  called  clearly 
as  '  Rogers,  old  fellow ! '  without  a  sign  of  accent  [Remember 
that  "Phinuit"  always  pronounced  it  with  an  accent.  H.H.] 
and  the  same  questions  put  as  to  how  were  the  '  fellows  at  the 
club.'  My  hand  was  cordially  shaken  [by  the  medium.  H.H.], 
and  I  remarked  the  same  movement  of  twisting  the  mustache, 
which  was  kept  up  by  Mrs.  Piper  during  the  interview.  '  Newell ' 
spoke  of  a  '  pastel '  which  I  was  drawing . . .  and  described  the 
pleasure  he  had  in  watching  me  do  it.  He  told  me  of  certain 
private  family  affairs  which  I  knew  to  be  correct.  Finally  he 
bade  me  good-by.  Before  going  he  spoke  to  me  of  his  '  present 
life,'  and  told  me  that  he  was  writing  a  poem ;  that  he  was  now 
pursuing  his  literary  studies  with  the  greatest  pleasure,  &c.,  &c. 
'  But,'  he  said,  '  was  I  not  sick,  and  did  I  not  suffer  before  I  left 
you  all?  Why,  the  leaving  of  the  material  body,  Rogers,  is  ter- 
rible. It  is  like  tearing  limb  from  limb;  but  once  free,  how 
happy  one  is.'  When  '  Newell '  left  me  there  was  the  usual  dis- 
turbance in  the  medium's  condition,  and  then  the  resumption  of 
the  familiar  voice,  accent  and  mannerisms  of  Dr.  Phinuit." 

The  Doctor's  remark:  "Here,  Newell,  you  come  by  the 
hands  while  I  go  out  by  the  feet "  has  haunted  me  since  I  first 
read  it  many  years  ago,  and  for  several  reasons. 


Ch.  XXIX]    Sympathetic  Ganglia.     The  Dog  Grover     423 

The  hypnotists  have  found  a  peculiar  sensibility  in  the  pit 
of  the  stomach,  near  the  sympathetic  ganglia.  Their  subjects 
and  some  somnambulists  appear  to  hear  and  see  from  there. 
And  there  are  suggestive  accounts  of  its  being  the  place  of 
entrance  and  exit  of  the  soul  or  astral  (?)  body — suggestive 
because  it  is  near  the  umbilicus,  where  the  foetus  derives  its 
nutriment  from  the  mother.  Whatever  that  may  amount  to, 
it  seems  absurd  that  the  hands,  and  of  all  things  the  feet, 
should  be  the  avenues  of  spiritual  entrance  and  exit;  but  in 
the  light  of  our  inherited  preconceptions,  a  good  many  things 
uncovered  by  "  psychical  research  "  have  seemed  absurd,  and 
yet  some  of  them  have,  in  time,  become  quite  matters  of 
course.  It  has  already  ineffectually  taken  me  nearly  twenty 
years  to  get  over  the  feet  and  what  they  suggest.  They  have 
been  one  reason  why  I  do  not  care  to  visit  mediums.  I  don't 
want  any  of  the  souls  I  love  coming  to  me  through  a  stranger's 
body,  especially  the  inferior  members  of  such  a  body.  Phinuit, 
however,  does  not  appear  to  have  been  a  very  finical  person, 
and  as  a  medical  man  he  is  presumably  to  be  credited  with 
superiority  to  many  of  a  layman's  prejudices. 

But  with  all  my  objections  to  the  passage,  isn't  it  as  dra- 
matic as  Falstaff  or  Pistol  ?  I  don't  see  how  one  can  read  it 
without  laughing  at  the  idea  that  telepathy  can  be  made  to 
cover  the  whole  case.  For  myself,  its  dramatic  quality  so  far 
tends  to  overcome  its  coarseness  and  apparent  absurdity,  that, 
commonplace  as  it  is,  it  stands  high  among  the  phenomena 
that  weigh  with  me  for  the  spiritistic  hypothesis — and  almost 
equally  high  with  those  that  weigh  against  it.  It  would  stand 
higher  still  in  the  latter  class  if  it  were  not  so  magnificently 
in  keeping  with  delightful  old  Phinuit.  I'm  sorry  for  any 
reader  of  the  Proceedings  who  does  not  enjoy  him  with  the 
two  gentlemen  I  named  before  him. 

Mr.  Rich  continues  (Pr.  VIII,  130) : 

"  Then  I  produced  a  dog's  collar.  After  some  handling  of  it 
the  '  Doctor '  recognized  it  as  belonging  to  a  dog  which  I  had 
once  owned.  I  asked  '  If  there  were  dogs  where  he  was  ? ' 
'  Thousands  of  them ! '  and  he  said  he  would  try  to  attract  the 
attention  of  my  dog  with  this  collar.  In  the  midst  of  our  con- 
versation he  suddenly  exclaimed,  '  There !  I  think  he  knows  you 
are  here,  for  I  see  [him]  coming  from  away  off ! '  He  then  de- 


424  Hodgson's  First  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

scribed  my  collie  perfectly,  and  said, '  You  call  him,  Reach,'  and 
I  gave  my  whistle  by  which  I  used  to  call  him.  '  Here  he  comes ! 
Oh,  how  he  jumps!  There  he  is  now,  jumping  upon  and  around 
you.  So  glad  to  see  you!  Rover!  Rover!  No — G-rover, 
Grover !  That's  his  name ! '  The  dog  was  once  called  Rover, 
but  his  name  was  changed  to  Grover  in  1884,  in  honor  of  the 
election  of  Grover  Cleveland." 

This  too  is  perhaps  telepathy !  Or  are  we  on  the  brink  of 
finding  that  a  woman's  secondary  selves  are  not  only  men,  and 
by  the  hundred,  but  sometimes  dogs  ?  The  only  demonstration 
necessary  would  be  for  Mrs.  Piper  to  try  to  bark. 

Mr.  Rich  continues  (p.  130)  : 

"A  child  was  constantly  beside  me  and  in  my  surroundings. 
It  was  attracted  to  me  and  had  much  influence  over  me :  'It  is 
a  blood  relation,  a  sister.'  I  denied  this  to  hare  ever  been  a  fact 
for  I  never  had  a  sister  and  never  heard  of  one.  The  answer 
came :  '  I  know  that,  you  were  never  told  of  it.  The  birth  was 
premature,  the  child  dead,  born  some  years  before  you  were.  Go 
and  ask  your  aunts  to  prove  it.'  On  questioning  an  aunt  who 
had  been  always  a  member  of  our  family,  I  learned  that  such  had 
been  the  case,  and  that  by  the  time  I  came  into  the  world  the 
affair  had  been  forgotten  and  there  had  never  been  a  reason  for 
informing  me  of  the  circumstances,  proving  that  I  in  no  way 
had  any  intimation  of  it,  and  that  this  communication  could 
not  be  explained  by  thought-transference  or  the  like." 

Note  that  though  Mr.  Rich  was  a  grown  man,  this  sister, 
born  several  years  before  he  was,  appeared  to  Phinuit  as  a 
child.  Similar  anomalies  in  regard  to  even  stillborn  children 
appear  several  times  in  the  reports.  It  is  no  explanation  of 
them  to  say  that  they  are  inconsistent  with  the  spiritistic 
hypothesis.  We  may  yet  find  that  they  are  not.  Either  way, 
they  await  explanation.  Generally  the  controls  appear  as 
having  grown,  and  in  long  series  of  sittings  (see  Junot  Series, 
Chapter  XLIX)  as  growing. 

Mr.  Rich  remarks  (p.  131)  : 

"  Although  the  '  prophecies '  of  the  '  Doctor '  were  not  fulfilled 
at  the  time  I  understood  him  to  mean  as  '  in  the  spring '  or  '  in 
the  fall,'  I  have  since  found  several  of  these  things  come  true, 
and  in  the  season  which  he  mentioned,  but  not  that  year  in 
which  he  led  me  to  expect  them  to  be  realized." 

Barring    some    comparatively    insignificant    matters,    this 


Ch.  XXIX]  Chronology  of  Reports  425 

closes  the  sittings  previous  to  Mrs.  Piper's  departure  for  Eng- 
land late  in  1889.  We  will  now  turn  to  her  sittings  there, 
reported  in  Pr.  VI,  and  then  give  a  brief  glance  back  to  Pr. 
VIII,  where  Hodgson  gives  those  from  her  return  in  the  spring 
of  1890  through  1891 


CHAPTER  XXX 
MRS.  PIPER'S  ENGLISH  SITTINGS,  1889-90 

THESE  were  held  under  the  supervision  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
and  Dr.  Walter  Leaf,  and  the  report  of  them  has  an  introduc- 
tion by  Myers,  and  is  followed  by  a  statement  of  impressions 
of  Mrs.  Piper  by  James.  All  these  experts  expressed  perfect 
confidence  in  the  honesty  of  the  medium,  and  that  the  phe- 
nomena were  not  explicable  by  any  agency  yet  known  to 
science. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says  (Pr.  VI,  445)  : 

"  The  details  given  of  my  family  are  just  such  as  one  might 
imagine  obtained  by  a  perfect  stranger  surrounded  by  the  whole 
of  one's  relations  in  a  group  and  able  to  converse  freely  but 
hastily  with  one  after  the  other;  not  knowing  them  and  being 
rather  confused  with  their  number  and  half-understood  mes- 
sages and  personalities,  and  having  a  special  eye  to  their  phys- 
ical weaknesses  and  defects.  A  person  in  a  hurry  thus  trying  to 
tell  a  stranger  as  much  about  his  friends  as  he  could  in  this  way 
gather  would  seem  to  me  to  be  likely  to  make  much  the  same 
kind  of  communication  as  was  actually  made  to  me." 

With  rather  more  confusion,  one  gets  this  impression  con- 
stantly in  reading  the  hundreds  of  pages  of  such  reports,  and 
it  reminds  me,  and  probably  many,  of  frequent  similar  im- 
pressions in  dreams,  which  naturally  awakens  the  notion  of 
inflow  of  more  or  less  confused  material  from  the  cosmic  mind. 

Touching  Phinuit,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  says  (Pr.  VI,  448f.) : 

"  The  name  is  useful  as  expressing  compactly  what  is  naturally 
prominent  to  the  feeling  of  any  sitter,  that  he  is  not  talking  to 
Mrs.  Piper  at  all.  The  manner,  mode  of  thought,  tone,  trains  of 
idea,  are  all  different.  You  are  speaking  no  longer  to  a  lady 
but  to  a  man,  an  old  man,  a  medical  man.  All  this  cannot  but 
be  vividly  felt  even  by  one  who  considered  the  impersonation  a 
consummate  piece  of  acting. 

"  Whether  such  a  man  as  Dr.  Phinuit  ever  existed  I  do  not 

know,  nor  from  the  evidential  point  of  view  do  I  greatly  care 

It  can  be  objected,  why  if  he  was  a  French  doctor  has  he  so  en- 
426 


Ch.  XXX]        Sir  Oliver  Lodge  on  Phinuit  427 

tirely  forgotten  his  French?  [But  he  has  not.  See  p.  420.  H.H.] 
...  I  am  unable  to  meet  this  objection,  by  anything  beyond  the 
obvious  suggestion  that  Mrs.  Piper's  brain  is  the  medium  util- 
ized, and  that  she  is  likewise  ignorant.  But  one  would  think 
that  it  would  be  a  sufficiently  patent  objection  to  deter  an  im- 
personator from  assuming  a  role  of  purely  unnecessary  diffi- 
culty  

"  Admitting,  however,  that  '  Dr.  Phinuit '  is  probably  a  mere 
name  for  Mrs.  Piper's  secondary  consciousness,  one  cannot  help 
being  struck  by  the  singular  correctness  of  his  medical  diag- 
noses. [Of  course  this,  like  everything  else  in  the  sittings,  is  de- 
nied by  somebody.  Cf.  ante.  H.H.]  In  fact  the  medical  state- 
ments, coinciding  as  they  do  with  truth  just  as  well  as  those  of 
a  regular  physician,  but  given  without  any  ordinary  examina- 
tion and  sometimes  without  even  seeing  the  patient,  must  be  held 
as  part  of  the  evidence  establishing  a  strong  prima  facie  case  for 
the  existence  of  some  abnormal  means  of  acquiring  information. 
Not  that  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  he  is  more  infallible  than  an- 
other. I  have  one  definite  case  of  distinct  error  in  a  diag- 
nosis  

"At  times  Dr.  Phinuit  does  fish.  Occasionally  he  guesses; 
and  sometimes  he  ekes  out  the  scantiness  of  his  information 
from  the  resources  of  a  lively  imagination. . . .  The  fishing  process 
is  most  marked  when  Mrs.  Piper  herself  either  is  not  feeling  well 
or  is  tired. . . .  When  he  does  not  fish  he  simply  draws  upon  his 
memory  and  retails  old  facts  which  he  has  told  before,  occasion- 
ally with  additions  of  his  own  which  do  not  improve  them.  His 
memory  seems  to  be  one  of  extraordinary  tenacity  and  exactness 
[more  than  any  human  memory.  H.H.I,  but  not  of  infallibility; 
and  its  lapses  do  introduce  error  [as  to  fishing,  see  p.  523.  H.H.]. 

"  He  seems  to  be  under  some  compulsion  not  to  be  silent. 
Possibly  the  trance  would  cease  if  he  did  not  exert  himself.  At 
any  rate  he  chatters  on,  and  one  has  to  discount  a  good  deal  of 
conversation  which  is  obviously,  and  sometimes  confessedly,  in- 
troduced as  a  stop-gap It  would  be  a  great  improvement  if, 

when  he  realizes  that  conditions  are  unfavorable,  he  would  say 
so  and  hold  his  peace.  I  have  tried  to  impress  this  upon  him, 
with  the  effect  that  he  is  sometimes  confidential,  and  says  that  he 
is  having  a  bad  time;  but  after  all  he  probably  knows  his  own 
business  best,  because  it  has  several  times  happened  that  after 
half  an  hour  of  more  or  less  worthless  padding,  a  few  minutes 
of  valuable  lucidity  have  been  attained. 

"  I  have  laid  much  stress  upon  this  fishery  hypothesis. . . .  But 
in  thus  laying  stress  I  feel  that  I  am  producing  an  erroneous 
and  misleading  impression  of  proportion.  I  have  spoken  of  a 
few  minutes'  lucidity  to  an  intolerable  deal  of  padding  as  an 
occasional  experience,  but  in  the  majority  of  the  sittings  held 
in  my  presence  the  converse  proportion  better  represents  the 
facts." 


428    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

The  amount  of  attention  given  everywhere  to  Phinuit  may 
seem  out  of  proportion,  especially  here,  and  also  especially  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  for  several  years,  the  old  fellow  has  been 
absent  from  mortal  converse,  and  replaced  by  a  great  variety 
of  people  (?)  who  speak,  or  rather  write,  for  themselves.  But 
this  attention  to  him  is,  on  my  part  at  least,  largely  because 
he  may  help  toward  an  explanation  of  those  "  other  people." 

Here  is  an  episode  explaining  a  nickname  that  Phinuit 
habitually  applied  to  Sir  Oliver  (Pr.  VI,  47 If.) : 

"  Cousin  married,  and  the  gentleman  passed  out  at  sea,  round 
the  sea Hullo,  he's  got  funny  buttons,  big,  bright. . .  A  uni- 
form. He  has  been  a  commander,  an  officer,  a  leader;  not  mil- 
itary, but  a  commander. . . .  [A  little  further  on  Phinuit  sud- 
denly brings  out  the  word  Cap'n  in  connection  with  him,  but,  in 
a  curious  and  half  puzzled  way,  applies  it  to  me.  It  remained 
my  Phinuit  nickname  to  the  end,  though  quite  inapplicable.] 
Your  mother  has  got  a  good  picture  of  him  taken  a  long  time 
ago,  pretty  good,  old-fashioned,  but  not  so  bad  of  him.  Yes, 
pretty  good.  He  looks  like  that  now.  He  looks  younger  than 
he  did " 

As  in  this  vision,  so  it  was  in  one  of  my  own  dreams  which 
I  suspect  was  in  several  respects  veridical;  and  in  two  other 
dreams  where  I  cannot  trace  any  veridicity,  the  persons  had 
grown  young.  But  in  another  which  I  fully  believe  to  have 
been  veridical,  the  person  had  grown  older  in  proportion  to 
the  time  since  "  passing  over,"  but  there  was  a  peculiar  reason 
for  such  a  manifestation:  I  fancy  that  my  friend  may  have 
wanted  to  appear  to  "  grow  old  along  with  me." 

You  see  I  am  now  justifying  Phinuit's  report  of  my  medi- 
umship,  but  don't  be  alarmed.  There  is  not  much  of  it.  Even 
if  more  were  possible,  I  have  been  too  busy  with  other  things, 
and  have  a  disinclination  regarding  it. 

Phinuit  asks  (Pr.  VI,  551)  : 

" '  Do  you  remember  the  little  one  that  passed  out  of  the 
body  ? '  E.  C.  L.  [Sir  O.'s  sister.  H.H.]  :  *  No,  but  I  know  there 

was  one.'    '  Well,  he's  here But  you  wouldn't  know  him  now. 

He's  grown  up.'  E.  C.  L. :  '  Then  they  do  grow  ? '  '  Certainly. 
He's  about  35,  I  should  say.  [The  brother  referred  to,  who  died 
aged  five  weeks,  would  have  been  33.]  They  all  look  about  35 
here.' " 

But  how  about  such  utterances  as  this  to  Mrs.  Leaf  (Pr. 


Ch.  XXX]          Controls  Growing  in  Years  429 

VI,  594),  and  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Rich's  sister?  Do  they  not 
flatly  contradict  what  has  been  said  about  growing  up? 

" '  There  is  a  little  child  round  you.  The  little  body  of  a  child. 
It  belonged  to  your  aunt  that  is  in  the  spirit,  that  passed  out 
years  and  years  ago;  you  will  have  to  ask  your  mother  about  it. 
You  will  find  that  it  is  a  little  child  that  never  lived  in  the  body.' 
R.  M.  L.:  '  Whose  child  was  that? '  '  The  child  does  not  know 
whose  child  she  was.  Don't  you  see,  the  child  was  too  young. 
I  can't  get  it  to  talk  to  me.  I  see  this  little  one;  it  belongs 
either  to  an  aunt  or  a  cousin.  Your  mother  will  know  about  it.' 

"  [This  is  not  known  to  be  correct  of  the  child  of  an  aunt  or 
cousin.  Mrs.  Leaf  had  herself  lost  a  baby,  born  dead.]" 

There  are  some  things  to  suggest  that  if  there  are  post- 
carnate  souls,  they  can  appear  as  of  any  age  in  their  experi- 
ence— and  so  show  their  history  since  separation,  to  anyone 
rejoining  them. 

One  naturally  speculates  whether,  if  there  is  a  future  state, 
those  there  keep  growing  old  with  all  the  disagreeables  inci- 
dent to  so  doing.  Twice,  in  dreams,  I  remember  very  vividly, 
the  old  had  grown  young.  This  recalls  Peter  Ibbetson's  state- 
ment that  he  and  his  beloved  kept  themselves  about  twenty- 
seven.  There  are  reports  that  Peter  Ibbetson  is  not  all  fancy, 
but  even  if  it  were,  such  reports  would  be  inevitable. 

This  whole  question  seems  as  much  of  a  jumble  as  the  ques- 
tion arising  from  the  controls'  frequent  assertion  that  their 
life  is  free  from  pain,  while  the  medium  is  frequently  acting 
evidences  of  pain — usually  that  of  their  last  illnesses.  In  sev- 
eral places  the  controls  say  this  is  done  to  prove  identity. 

Here  is  an  account  by  Sir  Oliver  that  makes  strongly  for 
the  telepathic  hypothesis,  but  the  last  sentence  is  rather 
against  it  (Pr.  VI,  466-7) : 

"You  have  a  son  in  the  body — a  smart  boy — clever,  but  not 

very  strong . . .  but  he  has  got  worms  badly '  Ought  he  to  go  to 

school  ? '  '  By  no  means.  You  ought  to  keep  him  at  home  and 
nurse  him,  and  give  him  vermifuge.  You  will,  won't  you? 
Worms  are  his  chief  trouble ;  they  consume  his  food,  his  stomach 
is  filled  with  slime;  he  feels  nausea;  no  ambition;  rather  irri- 
table.' [All  this  about  my  eldest  boy  is  painfully  true,  except 
that  it  is  perhaps  a  little  exaggerated.  We  had  suspected  worms 
before,  and  perceiving  the  outside  symptoms  correctly  described 
as  above,  we  took  the  matter  in  hand  seriously,  and  after  acting 


430    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt,  IV 

for  some  days  under  medical  advice  we  established  the  truth  of 
the  aboTe  statement  precisely.]" 

And   yet   it   is   frequently   said  that   Phinuit  could   not 
t 


"  '  Can  you  tell  me  what  his  favorite  pursuit  is  ? ' 
"  [This  I  asked  because  he  exhibits  a  remarkable  and  constant 
hankering  after  architecture,  spending  all  his  spare  time  when 
not  feeling  sick  and  headachy  in  drawing  plans  of  houses  and  in 
reading  about  buildings.  The  reply  was  utterly  wide  of  the 
mark.] 

" '  Pursuit  ?  oh,  takes  an  interest  in  natural  things ;  is  mu- 
sical.' " 

We  may  as  well  follow  this  boy  through  the  sittings  (Pr. 
VI,  505f.) : 

"Mrs.  L.:  'Do  you  remember  little  V?'  [The  Lodges'  sick 
boy.  H.H.]  Dr. :  '  I  do  remember.'  O.  L. :  <  Where  is  he  now? ' 
Dr. :  '  He  is  with  Mary  [i.e.,  his  grandmother :  true] .  He  is 
better  there,  and  we  are  going  to  take  good  care  of  him,  that 
nothing  serious  happens.  You  remember.  See  if  we  don't  take 
good  care  of  him,  in  your  life,  not  in  ours.  Our  interest  is  very 
great,  very  large,  and  we  could  do  a  great  deal.  And,  Marie, 

dear  [Mrs.  Lodge.  H.H.],  do  not  worry;  be  brave Do  not 

eend  him  to  school.    Let  him  stay  at  home  and  rest  well,  and  get 

strong He  will  pull  through,  and  come  out  all  right.    He  has 

got  worms.  Yes,  he  has  got  them  still;  but  he  will  outgrow  it, 
and  make  a  fine  boy.  Do  not  worry.  I  don't  tell  you  that  to 
encourage  you,  but  because  it  is  true.'  Mrs.  L. :  '  Are  they  little 
or  are  they  big  worms  ? '  Dr. :  '  Large,  not  small,  but  large 
worms;  that  is — they  are  not  tapeworms.  No.'  [True.]  Mrs. 
L. :  '  What  should  we  give  him  ? '  Dr. :  '  You  give  him  vermifuge 
to  take.  Suggest  some.'  [N.B. — This  is  not  the  usual  Phinuit 
method  of  prescription :  it  is  quite  exceptional.]  O.  L. :  '  Mer- 
cury ? '  Dr. :  '  No,  too  strong.  Weaken  him.'  Mrs.  L. :  '  San- 
tonin? Scammony?  Quassia?'  Dr.:  'Yes,  scammony  is  good. 
Give  him  that  with  quassia  alternately.'  O.  L. : '  Both  injected? ' 

Dr. : '  Yes,  best  thing  in  the  lot I  tell  you  you  have  got  a  great 

comfort  in  that  boy.'  Mrs.  L. :  '  Will  he  live  to  be  a  man  ? ' 
Dr. : '  Fretting !  It  is  all  bosh,  and  you  had  better  be  asleep  than 
fretting  about  people.  Do  as  I  told  you.  He  will  come  out 
all  right.  That's  what's  the  matter.  Give  him  hot  water  to 

drink You  make  the  vermifuge  I  told  you Take  good 

care  of  yourself,  Marie,  we'll  take  good  care  of  him.  Change 
will  do  him  good.  There  is  others  in  your  surroundings  that 
needs  looking  after  just  as  much  and  more.  [This  grammar  was 
not  telepathed  from  the  Lodges!  H.H.]  You  need  not  worry 
about  any  of  them  for  the  present.  It  is  all  right.  It  will  be 


Ch.  XXX]         Controls  Do  Best  near  Home  431 

all  right  ____  But  God  knows.  What  He  told  me  to  say,  and 
what  He  allows  me  to  know,  I  know  and  no  more.  I  can't  help 
getting  mixed  up  sometimes;  and  it  makes  me  mad.  I'd  like  to 
be  all  straight,  not  crooked.  I  do  take  care  of  you.  When  the 
voice  of  Dr.  Phinuit  is  no  longer  heard  in  the  body,  remember 
you  had  a  friend  in  me,  and  one  who  will  always  look  after  you, 
no  matter  what  one  says  about  me.  I  go  on.  I  fight,  fight  them 
all  ;  and  they  will  always  do  ----  Get  good  for  me  to  do.  God 
bless  you  all,  and  the  best  wishes.  Captain  !  Is  there  anything 
else?  I  will  speak  to  you  again.  Doctor!  '  " 

Sir  Oliver  thus  speaks  about  something  which  the  reports 
had  suggested  to  me  before  I  had  read  up  to  his  mention  of  it, 
and  which  to  me  did  not  by  any  manner  of  means  "seem 
absurd"  (Pr.  XXIII,  138,  A.D.  1909): 

"  One  curious  circumstance  I  feel  constrained  to  mention  — 
though  it  will  seem  absurd  —  and  that  is  that  the  controls  seem 
to  do  best  in  their  own  country.  For  instance,  long  ago  [1889. 
H.H.],  before  any  of  us  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  had  seen 
Mrs.  Piper,  a  control  calling  itself  Gurney  sent  messages  through 
that  medium  while  she  was  still  in  America;  which  messages, 
when  recorded  on  this  side,  were  thought  feeble  and  unworthy, 
so  that  the  control  was  spoken  of  both  by  Prof.  W.  James  and 
by  those  in  England  as  '  the  pseudo-Gurney.'  When,  however, 
Mrs.  Piper  came  over  here  the  '  Gurney  '  messages  became  bet- 
ter, and  could  be  described  as  quite  fairly  lifelike." 

It  was  this  Gurney  control  whom  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  reported 
in  Pr.  VI  as  "  Mr.  E.,"  but  revealed  in  a  later  paper  in  Pr. 
XXIII  as  Edmund  Gurney.  The  later  report  duplicates  and 
enlarges  a  contemporary  report  in  which  he  suppressed  several 
matters  that  twenty  years  later  he  felt  free  to  print.  I  quote 
here  from  the  later  account,  interrupting,  and  I  fear  confusing, 
our  chronological  order,  for  the  sake  of  getting  in  the  com- 
ments which  Sir  Oliver  made  in  1909.  He  says  (Pr.  XXIII, 


"  I  learnt  in  this  way  more  about  the  life  and  thoughts  of 
Edmund  Gurney  than  I  had  known  in  his  lifetime.  [And  Mrs. 
Piper  knew  less.  Then  where  did  it  come  from?  H.H.]  My 
acquaintance  with  him  .  .  .  began  in  the  early  seventies,  when  .  .  . 
he  ...  sat  on  the  benches  of  University  College,  London,  to  listen 
to  my  regular  college  lectures  on  Mechanics  and  Physics  ----  He 
was  good  enough  to  strike  up  a  friendship  with  his  youthful 
instructor,  and  I  occasionally  lunched  with  him,  and  once  or 
twice  saw  him  in  his  rooms  at  Clarges  Street. 

"The  talk  gradually  turned  upon  psychical  matters  ----  Mr. 


433    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Gurney  was  even  then  at  work  on  systematic  preparation  for  the 

book,  Phantasms  of  the  Living Before  long  he  introduced  me 

to  his  friend,  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  who,  like  Mr.  Gurney,  was  pa- 
tience itself  in  trying  to  inspire  my  superficial  and  dogmatic 
materialism  with  an  element  of  larger  sense. 

"  A  few  years  after  all  this  the  S.P.R.  was  founded,  but  I  was 
not  one  of  the  original  members.  I  joined,  I  suppose,  after  the 
Liverpool  thought-transference  experiments  in  1883  and  1884 
[see  p.  245  f.].  I  had  migrated  to  Liverpool  in  1881,  and  remained 
there  till  1900.  Professor  Barrett  I  had  of  course  known  all 
along  as  a  physicist,  and  in  the  eighties  we  had  some  conversa- 
tions on  thought-transference  in  connection  with  the  Liverpool 
experiments,  in  some  of  which  I  took  part,  and  on  which  I  re- 
ported in  the  Pr.S.P.R.,Vol.2. 

"  Until  1884  I  was  unconvinced  of  the  possibility  of  telepathy; 
and  not  till  the  end  of  1889  did  the  evidence  for  survival  of  per- 
sonality beyond  bodily  death  make  any  serious  impression  upon 
me. . . .  Edmund  Gurney  died  in  1888,  at  a  time  when  I  was 
entirely  absorbed  in  orthodox  physical  experiments  and  the- 
ory  

"The  first  mention  of  Gurney  in  my  sittings  occurred  on 
Saturday  evening,  December  21,  1889. ...  (A  photograph  of  my 
late  Demonstrator  Mr.  Clark  was  here  handed  in.)  L. :  '  Can 
you  tell  who  this  is?'  [Phinuit.]:  'Well  I  will  try.  Edmund 
will  help  me.  A  vessel  burst  in  his  stomach,  and  he  passed  out 
very  suddenly.  He  was  away,  not  at  home.  A  clever  fellow  and 
a  great  help.  He  fell.  Edmund  sends  his  love  to  you.'  (A  letter 
from  Edmund  Gurney  was  handed  in.)  L. :  '  Can  you  read 
this? '  P. :  '  Oh,  I  don't  know.  I  can't  read  it  word  for  word.  I 
can  tell  you  what  it  is  about.  It  has  got  Edmund's  influence  on 
it.  So  had  that  picture.  Had  you  kept  it  with  Edmund's  let- 
ter?'  L. : '  Well  it  had  been  in  the  same  pocket.'  P. : '  You  must 
not  do  that.  You  mix  things  up  if  you  do  that.  No,  I  can't 
read  this  letter.  It  is  something  about  some  books ' 

"  [Here  the  personality  seemed  to  change  and  to  represent  Ed- 
mund Gurney.  He  spoke  so  naturally  that  for  a  time  I  forgot 
to  take  notes,  but  nothing  evidential  was  said.  The  notes  go  on 
thus : — They  are  henceforward  very  imperfect,  i.e.,  fragmentary.] 

"  G. : '  I  am  here,  I  etherially  exist.  I  wrote  to  you  about  some 
books  for  the  Society.  I  have  seen  a  little  woman  that's  a  me- 
dium, a  true  medium.  I  have  written  to  Myers  using  her  hand. 
I  did  do  it,  I,  Edmund  Gurney,  I.'  L. :  'Is  this  a  medium  here 
now  ? '  G. : '  Yes,  she's  a  medium.  Very  few  you  will  get  like  Dr. 
Phinuit.  He  is  not  all  one  would  wish,  but  he  is  all  right.  You 
are  Lodge.  I  know  you.  Lodge  we  shall  beat  them  yet.  There 
is  no  death,  only  a  shadow  and  then  Light.  Experiment  and 
observation  are  indispensable.  We  have  to  use  some  method  like 
this  to  communicate 

" '  Yes,  God  is  in  Nature,  all  Nature  is  God.    We  are  a  reflec- 


Ch.  XXX]  The  Gurney  Control  433 

tion  of  God.  Don't  give  up  a  good  thing.  The  world  will  know, 
and  our  Society  will  know,  that  there  is  no  death.  I  didn't 
know.  I  would  have  given  anything  to  have  had  you  come  and 
speak  to  me,  if  you  had  passed  away  first,  as  I  am  speaking  to 
you  now.'  L. :  'Is  it  goocl  to  be  where  you  are?'  G.:  'Yes,  it 
is  good, — the  only  good  thing.  Life  in  material  world  is  beauti- 
ful. Marriage  is  beautiful,  but  this  is  far  better.'  L. :  'Is  there 
no  marriage?'  G. :  'No,  no,  Swedenborg  was  all  wrong.  Jesus 
Christ  was  right ;  he  knew.  He  was  a  reflection  of  God.' " 

Evening  of  25th  Dec.,  1889.  (Pr.XXO,149f.) 
"(Phinuit  now  seemed  to  leave,  and  another  control,  speaking 
in  a  more  educated  voice,  took  his  place;  the  change  taking 
place  with  a  little  uncertainty  and  difficulty  as  to  how  to  man- 
age it,  and  a  seeming  colloquy  between  the  departing  and  en- 
tering controls, — Phinuit  giving  sotto  voce  instructions.  After 
the  change  was  over,  the  voice  said) :  '  Lodge,  how  are  you  ?  I 
tell  you  Edmund  Gurney  is  living,  not  dead.  Edmund  Gurney, 
that's  me :  you  know  me,  don't  you  ? '  L. :  '  Yes,  Gurney,  de- 
lighted to  see  you  again.'  G. :  '  Don't  give  it  up  Lodge.  Cling 
to  it,  it's  the  best  thing  you  have.  It's  coarse  in  the  beginning 
but  it  can  be  ground  down  fine.  You'll  know  best  and  correct  ( I) 
It  can  only  come  through  a  trance.  You  have  to  put  her  in  a 
trance.  You've  got  to  do  it  that  way  to  make  yourself  known.' 
[Foster  required  no  trance,  and  many  of  the  heteromatic  writers 
require  no  trance.  H.H.]  L. :  'Is  it  bad  for  the  medium?' 
G. :  '  It's  the  only  way  Lodge;  in  one  sense  it's  bad,  but  in  an- 
other it's  good.  It  is  her  work.  If  I  take  possession  of  the 
medium's  body,  and  she  goes  out,  then  I  can  use  her  organism 
to  tell  the  world  important  truths.  There  is  an  infinite  power 
above  us.  Lodge  believe  it  fully,  infinite  over  all,  most  marvel- 
ous. One  can  tell  a  medium  she's  like  a  ball  of  light.  You 
look  as  dark  and  material  as  possible,  but  we  find  two  or  three 
lights  shining.  It's  like  a  series  of  rooms  with  candles  at  one 
end.  Must  use  analogy  to  express  it.  When  you  need  a  light 
you  use  it,  when  you  have  finished  you  put  it  out.  They  are 
like  transparent  windows  to  see  through.  Lodge,  it's  a  puzzle. 
It's  a  puzzle  to  us  here  in  a  way  though  we  understand  it  better 
than  you.  I  work  at  it  hard.  I  do.  I'd  give  anything  I  possess 
to  find  out.  I  don't  care  for  material  things  now,  our  interest 
is  much  greater.  I  am  studying  hard  how  to  communicate;  it's 
not  easy.  But  it's  only  a  matter  of  a  short  time  before  I  shall 
be  able  to  tell  the  world  all  sorts  of  things  through  one  medium 
or  another. — Who's  that  ? '  L. :  '  It  is  my  brother.  He's  taking 

notes How  is  it  they  see  their  things?'    G.:  'I  don't  know, 

there  is  something  about  articles  worn  by  spirits  which  retains 
their  personality  ( ?)  and  a  spirit  controlling  a  medium  is  sensi- 
tive to  such.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  they  will  recognize  their 
things;  it  doesn't  come  from  your  mind.'  L. :  'Then  it's  not 


434    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

ordinary  thought  transference.'  G. : '  No,  it's  not  that.  Investi- 
gate. You  can  verify  with  patience.  From  time  to  time  you 
will  hear  from  me  and  I  will  advise  you.  I  met  a  lady  in  Amer- 
ica— a  Mrs.  Dorr '  [mother  of  Mr.  George  B.  Dorr,  whom  we 
shall  meet  later.  H.H.].  [A  lady  well  known  to  Mrs.  Piper,  but 
I  did  not  happen  to  know  the  name  then.  O.  J.L.]  L. :  '  Daw  ? ' 
G. :  '  No,  Dorr,  D  o  r  r,  a  very  nice  lady ;  very  intellectual  spirit- 
ual and  good.  1  had  a  long  talk  with  her,  and  through  her  I 
found  the  medium.  She  is  a  medium.  These  people  are  links 

between    the    material    and   spirit   worlds Where's    Myers  ? 

Give  him  my  love.  I  want  to  help  him.  Lodge,  when  I  passed 
out  at  first  I  didn't  know  who  I  was,  nor  where  I  was.  I  hunted 
about  for  my  friends  and  for  my  body.  Soon  however  my  sister 
welcomed  me.  Three  of  them,  all  drowned.  If  I  see  Myers  I 
will  talk  to  him.  No  spirit  in  the  spirit  world  is  more  anxious 
to  let  friends  know  than  I  was.  [S.ome  private  matter  here.] 
Don't  mention  this.  Tell  Myers  if  you  like.  Myers  is  my  con- 
fidential friend.  There  is  nothing  I  wouldn't  have  him  know. 
Kate  is  my  wife,  my  sister  is  Ellen,  [abbreviated]  Lodge  keep 
up  your  courage;  there  is  a  quantity  to  hope  for  yet.  Hold  it 
up  for  a  time.  Don't  be  in  a  hurry.  Get  facts ;  no  matter  what 
they  call  you,  go  on  investigating.  Test  to  fullest.  Assure  your- 
self, then  publish.  It  will  be  all  right  in  the  end — no  question 

about  it.    It's  true '    L. :  '  What  sort  of  person  is  this  Dr. 

Phinuit? '  [It  is  noteworthy  that  all  the  Controls  treat  Phinuit 
as  a  genuine  person  of  whom  they  have  to  speak  circumspectly 
when  he  is  likely  to  be  able  to  overhear  what  they  are  saying  or 
read  what  they  are  writing.  Compare,  for  instance,  statements 
about  him  made  by  G.  P.  in  the  Hodgson  Keport;  footnote  to 
page  369,  Vol.  13.]  In  the  present  instance  the  Gurney  Control 
replied  to  my  question  thus : — '  Dr.  Phinuit  is  a  peculiar  type  of 
man ;  he  goes  about  continually  and  is  thrown  in  with  everybody. 
He  is  eccentric  and  quaint  but  good  hearted.  I  wouldn't  do  the 
things  he  does  for  anything.  He  lowers  himself  sometimes ;  it's 
a  great  pity.  He  has  very  curious  ideas  about  things  and  people, 
he  receives  a  great  deal  about  people  from  themselves  (?).  And 
he  gets  expressions  and  phrases  that  one  doesn't  care  for,  vulgar 
phrases  he  picks  up  by  meeting  uncanny  people  through  the 
medium.  These  things  tickle  him  and  he  goes  about  repeating 
them.  He  said  to  me  the  other  day  "  Mr.  Gurney  what  you  think 
a  gentleman  said  to  me  the  other  day :  he  said  '  put  that  in  your 
pipe  and  smoke  it,  Dr.' "  He  picks  up  this  sort  of  thing  and  it 
tickles  him.  He  has  to  interview  a  great  number  of  people  and 
has  no  easy  berth  of  it.  A  high  type  of  man  couldn't  do  the 
work  be  does.  But  he  is  a  good-hearted  old  fellow.  Good-bye 
Lodge.  Here's  the  Doctor  coming.'  L. :  '  Good-bye  Gurney. 
Glad  to  have  had  a  chat  with  you.' 

"  (The  Control  here  changes  back  again.)     P. :  '  This  [ring] 
belongs  to  your  Aunt.    Your  Uncle  Jerry  tells  me  to  ask By 


Ch.  XXX]         Aunt  Isabel    More  Gurney  435 

the  way,  do  you  know  Mr.  Gurney's  been  here;  did  you  hear 
him? '  L. :  '  Yes,  I've  had  a  long  talk  with  him.' " 

Evening  of  2Qth  Dec.,  1889.    (Pr.XXm,154.) 

"  (Dr.  Phinuit  speaking  and  reporting  in  the  first  person.) 

'  I  could  almost  come  back  and  die  over  again  to  see  you.    You 

tell  Mary  that  her  sister  Isabel  [See  later]  still  lives;  tell  her 

she  has  done  nobly;  tell  her  William  and  I  are  together.    That 

lazy  gardener ! ' 

"  (Then  the  voice  and  manner  changed  to  that  of  the  Gurney 

control.     G. :  '  Don't  give  up  a  good  thing,  Lodge Who  is 

here  ? '  L. : '  This  is  my  wife.'  G. : '  How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Lodge 
(shaking  hands)  [i.e.,  the  medium  does.  H.H.].  I  remember 
having  tea  with  you  once.'  [It  was  true  that  Mr.  Gurney  had 
done  so.]  L. :  (Introducing)  '  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thompson.'  G. : 
4  Yes,  I  remember  you,  I  think.  [They  had  once  met.J  Good-by, 
Lodge ;  don't  divulge  my  secrets.'  L. :  '  No,  all  right ;  good- 

by ' 

"  [L.]  The  point  of  this  short  episode  is  the  sudden  and  natu- 
ral stoppage  of  the  conversation  directly  the  control  realizes  that 
strangers  are  present.  That  and  the  introductions  that  followed 
were  all  just  as  if  the  Gurney  control  were  a  person  really 
present." 

Monday  Evening,  3rd  February,  1890.  (Pr.XXIII,155f.) 
"  Phinuit  suddenly  said,  '  Here's  Mr.  Gurney.'  (Thereupon 
the  control  appeared  to  change,  the  impression  somehow  con- 
veyed being  very  much  as  if  Phinuit  were  leaving  and  another 
coming  in  his  place.  The  voice  also  became  different  and  more 
educated  than  before.  No  longer  was  I  called  '  Captain,'  nor 
were  people's  relations  and  personal  affairs  any  more  regarded 
as  objects  of  interest.)  . . .  G. : '  It  is  wonderfully  difficult  to  com- 
municate. All  the  time  I've  been  here  I  have  only  found  two 
mediums  beside  this  one.  More  people  might  be  mediums,  but 
many  won't  when  they  can.'  L. : '  What  constitutes  a  medium  ? ' 
G. : '  Not  too  much  spirituality  and  not  too  much  animalism,  not 
the  highest  people  and  not  the  lowest.  Sympathetic  and  not  too 
self-conscious,  able  to  let  their  minds  be  given  up  to  another— 
that  sort  of  person — easily  influenced.  Many  could,  but  their 
pride  and  a  sense  of  self  comes  in  and  spoils  it.'  [Despite 
Phinuit  and  Gurney,  my  conscience  does  not  trouble  me  on  the 
point,  if  you  will  pardon  my  saying  so.  H.H.]  L. :  '  Gurney, 
what  about  those  table-tilting  and  physical  things?  Is  there 
anything  in  them  ? '  G. :  '  Mostly  fraud.  The  rest  electricity. 
[Apparently  a  queer  remark  for  Gurney,  but  possibly  not  beyond 
natural  carelessness.  Of  course  all  modes  of  force  are  inter- 
changeable. H.H.]  A  person's  nerves  are  doing  they  don't 
know  what.  They  are  often  not  conscious  when  they  move 
things.'  L. : '  It's  like  automatic  writing  then  ? '  G. : '  Something. 


436    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Often  the  tilts  and  noises  are  made  by  them  when  under  the 
control  of  some  other  spirit,  and  then  the  message  may  be  gen- 
uine. Trance  things  and  automatic  writing  are  good.  Often 
good.  Other  things  sometimes,  but  mostly  fraud.'  L. :  '  Can 
things  be  moved  without  contact  V  G. :  '  No,  all  bosh.'  [We 
know  better  now;  there  are  hosts  of  cases.  See  under  Tele- 
kinesis. H.H.]  L. :  '  Then  that  Eglinton  writing,  with  bits  of 
pencil  untouched  ? '  G. : '  Trickery,  Lodge.  Not  worth  a  thought. 
Most  of  this  I  have  gone  into,  and  it's  as  false  as  that  elf,  that 
fiend,  I  might  say.  She  bewitched  me  once.  What's  her  name, 
that  woman  who  smoked?'  L.:  'Blavatsky?'  G.:  'That's  her 

name Who  is  this  V     L. :  '  It's  my  sister,  a  young  girl.' 

G. :  '  Oh ;  pleased  to  make  your  acquaintance.  I  didn't  meet  you 
I  think.'  E.  C.  L. : '  No,  I  never  saw  you.'  G. : '  Glad  to  see  you 
now. . . .  Phinuit  will  be  coming  back  soon.  He's  a  good  old 
man.  He  has  a  hard  place.  I  wouldn't  do  the  work  he  does  for 
anything.  Seeing  all  manner  of  people  and  hunting  up  their 
friends,  and  often  he  has  hard  work  to  persuade  them  that  they 
are  really  wanted.'  L. :  'Is  he  reliable ? '  G. :  '  Not  perfectly, 
he  is  not  a  bit  infallible.  He  mixes  things  terribly  sometimes. 
He  does  his  best ;  he's  a  good  old  man  but  he  does  get  confused, 
and  when  he  can't  hear  distinctly  he  fills  it  up  himself.  He  does 
invent  things  occasionally,  he  certainly  does.  Sometimes  he  has 
rery  hard  work.'  L. :  '  Are  his  medical  prescriptions  any  good  ? ' 
G. :  '  Oh,  he's  a  shrewd  doctor.  He  knows  his  business  thor- 
oughly. He  can  see  into  people  [He  certainly  did  into  me. 
H.H.],  and  is  very  keen  on  their  complaints.  Yes,  he  is  good 
in  that  way,  very  good.'  L. :  '  Can  he  see  ahead  at  all  ?  Can 
anyone  ? '  G. :  '  I  can't.  I  haven't  gone  into  that.  I  think 
Phinuit  can  a  little  sometimes.  He  can  do  wonderful  things; 
he  has  studied  these  things  a  good  deal ;  he  can  do  many  things 

that  I  can't  do But  he  is  far  from  being  infallible.'    L. :  '  The 

Thompsons  are  waiting  in  next  room.  Shall  I  call  them  in  ? ' 
G. :  '  The  Thompsons  ?  Oh,  I  know,  I  met  them  at  your  house 
once  at  dinner  I  think.  No,  I  don't  specially  want  to  see  them. 
Well,  Lodge,  I  must  be  going.  Good-by.'  (Here  the  medium 
seemed  to  sleep  a  few  moments,  and  then  woke  up  again  in  the 
Phinuit  manner,  putting  out  hand  and  feeling  sitter's  head.) 
'  Eh,  what.  Oh,  yes.  All  right.  [This  was  internal  colloquy.] 
Look  here,  Mr.  Gurney  has  been  here ;  he  told  me  to  express  his 
regret  that  he  had  not  said  good-by  to  Miss  Lodge.'  E.  C.  L.: 
'  Oh,  it  doesn't  matter  a  bit.'  P. :  '  I'm  to  tell  him  that,  am  L 

Very  well ' 

"  [L.]  Again  it  was  the  dramatic  character  of  the  speaking 

that  was  impressive— -rather  than  the  things  said 1  attach  no 

importance  to  what  is  said  concerning  physical  phenomena:  it 
does  not  pretend  to  represent  more  than  an  individual  opinion, 
whoever  the  individual  may  be The  casual  reference  of  un- 
known phenomena,  part  to  fraud,  the  rest  to  '  Electricity/  though 


Ch.  XXX]    Significance  in  Changes  of  Control  437 

quite  common  with  uneducated  people,  was  especially  unworthy 
of  Edmund  Gurney,  and  not  in  the  least  the  sort  of  thing  he 
would  have  said  to  me  when  alive.  [Then  it  was  not  telepathy 
from  Sir  Oliver,  whatever  it  was.  H.H.]  . . .  But  the  little  friendly 
speeches  to  my  sister  were  quite  appropriate  to  Mr.  Gurney,  and 
so  especially  was  the  readiness  to  depart  the  instant  he  heard 

that  the  Thompsons  were  waiting  to  come  in Not  that  he 

had  any  objection  to  them;  but,  besides  the  dislike  of  keeping 
anyone  waiting,  he  had  the  natural  unwillingness  of  the  man  of 
sensitive  temperament  to  be  thrown  with  strangers  needlessly. 

"  It  will  have  been  observed  that  several  times  in  the  record  I 
have  emphasized  the  change  of  control.  I  have  done  so  all  the 
more  explicitly  because  now  [1909.  H.H.]  it  seems  a  compara- 
tively extinct,  or  at  any  rate  a  less  pronounced,  feature.  The 
whole  business  of  '  control '  seemed  more  difficult  then  [1889. 
H.H.],  and  it  is  possible  that  a  personality  really  changes  now 
without  our  noticing  the  change  so  much.  Then,  however . . . 
once  I  remember  it  occupied  a  minute  or  two,  with  a  muttered 
internal  colloquy  going  on,  as  if  there  were  a  tangle  or  a  hitch 
somewhere. 

"  The  naturalness  of  the  change  in  manner  and  memory  was 

very  pronounced A  reader  may  think  that  this  is  due  to  the 

perfection  of  conscious  acting,  while  a  sitter  of  any  experience 
will  hardly  think  that.  The  fluctuation  of  memory  is  certainly 
not  artificial;  it  is  a  genuine  change  of  personality — whatever 
that  may  be ...  unmistakably  analogous  to  multiple  personality, 
whether  that  be  ever  due  to  control  by  actual  possession  or 
not 

"  February  3rd,  1890  (as  reported  on  p.  550,  Vol.  6),  I  asked 
for  a  certain  person  to  come  and  control  instead  of  only  sending 
messages,  and  was  told  that  it  was  too  difficult.  I  pleaded  '  Mr. 
Gurney  does.'  To  which  Phinuit  replied,  '  You  are  greedy. 
Yes,  Mr.  Gurney  does,  but  Mr.  Gurney  is  a  scientific  man,  who 
has  gone  into  these  things.  He  comes  and  turns  me  out  some- 
times. It  would  be  a  very  narrow  place  into  which  Mr.  Gurney 
couldn't  get.' " 

This  closes  the  report  which  Sir  Oliver  made  in  1909  (Pr. 
XXIII),  giving  more  fully  than  he  did  in  Pr.  VI  the  con- 
temporaneous report  of  the  Gurney  sittings  that  took  place  in 
1889. 

The  appearances  of  the  Gurney  control  in  1889  were  largely 
picked  out  and  made  consecutive,  from  sittings  when  other 
controls  also  appeared.  We  will  now  revert  from  the  account 
of  the  Gurney  control  in  Pr.  XXIII,  then  twenty  years  old, 
to  the  contemporary  account  in  Pr.  VI  of  the  other  controls 


438    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

who  sometimes  appeared  at  the  same  sittings  when  Gurney 
did,  and  sometimes  at  others.  Here  is  a  characteristic  Phi- 
nuit  touch  (Pr.  VI,  484) : 

"  She  remembers  more  than  you  do.  What  do  you  think  she 
says  to  me?  She  says,  don't  swear,  doctor;  she  did,  sure  as  you 
live." 

There  is  a  very  remarkable  case  of  telopsis,  too  long  to  give 
here,  in  Pr.  VI,  487-90. 

Sitting  44.    December  24ta,  1889.     (Pr.VI,499,  506.) 
"Present:  O.  J.  L.;  later,  M.  L.  also;  with  Briscoe  taking 
shorthand  notes  all  the  time.     (Verbatim  report  as  a  specimen 
taken  at  random.) 

"  Dr. : '  How  do  you  do,  Doctor  ? '  (Evidently  referring  to  the 
last  sitter,  Dr.  C.) 

"  O.  L. :  <  H'm.  I  am  very  well,  thank  you.'  Dr. :  '  'Ullo,  I 
thought  it  was  the  Doctor  (i.e.,  Dr.  C.).  You  know  I  saw  him 
last.'  O.  L. : '  Yes,  you  did.'  Dr. :  <  Two  times.  Well,  I  thought 
it  was  him,  don't  you  know.'  [Again  this  bad  grammar  cannot 
be  telepathic  from  Sir  O.,  nor  was  it  apt  to  come  from  Mrs. 
Piper.  The  bearing  of  this  on  the  genuineness  of  Phinuit  13 
worth  considering.  H.H.]  . . .  Dr. :  '  Do  you  know  who  Jerry — 
J— E— R— K— Y— is  ? '  O.  L. :  '  Yes.  Tell  him  I  want  to  hear 
from  him.'  U[ncle]  J[erry.  H.H.]  :  '  Tell  Robert,  Jerry  still 
lives.  He  will  be  very  glad  to  hear  from  me.  This  is  my  watch, 
and  Robert  is  my  brother  [surviving.  H.H.],  and  I  am  here. 
Uncle  Jerry — my  watch.'  (Impressively  spoken.)  O.  L. :  '  Do 
you  see  Aunt  Anne  now  ? '  Dr. :  '  Yes,  she  looks  the  same  iden- 
tical ;  always  the  same  Aunt  Anne [Apparently  Aunt  Anne 

takes  control.  She  was  a  devoted  aunt  who  had  brought  up  Sir 
Oliver  and  his  brothers  and  sisters.  Bear  this  in  mind.  H.H.] 
We  took  good  care  of  him.  You  little  woman  [to  Lady  Lodge. 
H.H.],  didn't  we?'" 

With  reference  to  the  next  sitting,  Sir  Oliver  says  (Pr. 
VI,  455) : 

41  One  of  the  best  sitters  was  my  next-door  neighbor,  Isaac  C. 
Thompson,  F.L.S.,  to  whose  name  indeed,  before  he  had  been  in 
any  way  introduced,  Phinuit  sent  a  message  purporting  to  come 
from  his  father.  Three  generations  of  his  and  of  his  wife's 
family  living  and  dead  (small  and  compact  Quaker  families) 
were,  in  the  course  of  two  or  three  sittings,  conspicuously  men- 
tioned with  identifying  detail ;  the  main  informant  representing 
himself  as  his  deceased  brother,  a  young  Edinburgh  doctor, 
whose  loss  had  been  mourned  some  20  years  ago, " 

Sir  Oliver  introduces  the  sitting  (Pr.  VI,  5071)  : 


Ch.  XXX]    Uncle  Jerry,    Aunt  Anne.    Thompsons        439 

"  The  next  sitting  was  the  first  with  our  neighbors  the  Thomp- 
sons. Mrs.  Piper  had  been  introduced  to  them  a  day  or  two 
before,  and  liked  them  particularly;  they  are  too  near  neighbors 
to  attempt  making  strangers  of.  Their  children  also  she  had 
seen  more  or  less:  though  no  other  relatives." 

Sitting  45.    December  24th,  1889.     (Pr.VI,508f.) 
"Present:  O.  L.,  Mr.  and  Mrs.   Thompson,  and  A.  L.   [a 
brother  of  Sir  Oliver,  I  believe.  H.H.]  taking  notes. 

"  0.  L.  holding  hands  [i.e.,  Mrs.  Piper's.  This  had  been  nec- 
essary perhaps  in  the  beginning,  but  it  was  outgrown  before 
I  saw  her  in  1894.  H.H.].  Mr.  and  Mrs.  T.  some  way  off. 

"  P. :  '  Hulloa,  Captain,  I've  been  talking  to  your  friends. 
Had  a  long  talk  with  Uncle  Jerry.  He  remembers  you  now,  as 
a  boy  with  Aunt  Anne  [this  is  exactly  how  he  would  remember 
me],  but  you  were  kind  of  small.  He  knew  you  but  he  didn't 
know  me  very  well ;  wondered  what  the  devil  I  wanted  trying  to 
talk  to  him  and  how  I  got  here.  Yes,  he  remembers  his  watch — 
it's  in  possession  of  Robert.  He  used  to  call  him  Bob.  (Took 
watch  in  hands.)  Ha !  well,  this  watch  came  from  Russia — yes 
— Uncle  Jerry  said  so.  [Unlikely.]  . . .  Who  are  those  people 
over  there?'  O.  L. :'  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thompson.'  P.: 'Oh!  why 
that's  the  gentleman  to  whom  his  father  sent  his  love  and  said 
something  about  Ted.  Didn't  you  tell  him?'  O.  L.:  'Yes,  I 
did,  but  wasn't  sure  you  meant  him.'  P. :  'Of  course  I  did. 
They're  a  couple,  they  are.  One  wants  to  do  something  and  the 
other  doesn't.'  [Had  just  been  discussing  a  proposition  on 
which  they  took  different  views.]  . . . P. :  'I  say,  Captain,  your 
friends  have  a  lot  to  tell  you,  they're  just  clamoring  to  get  at 
you.  Why  the  devil  don't  you  give  them  a  chance  ? '  O.  L. : 
'  Well,  I  will  next  time.'  P.:  '  There's  Marion— Agnes.  Ha,  ha, 
I  got  it  that  time — Adnes — Agnes.'  Mrs.  T. :  '  Agnes,  all  right.' 
[Phinuit  had  had  difficulty  in  pronouncing  it  once  before.  H.H.] 
(Watch  handled  again.  It  was  a  repeater,  and  happened  to  go 
off.)  P. :  '  Hullo,  I  didn't  do  that.  Jerry  did  that,  to  remind 
you  of  him.  Here,  take  it  away — it  goes  springing  off — it's 
alive.'  Mrs.  T.:  'What  can  we  do  for  Theodora's  headaches?' 
P. :  '  Nerves  of  stomach  out  of  order.  Have  you  got  anything 
of  hers  to  give  me  ? '  O.  L. :  '  Go  and  get  a  lock  of  her  hair.' 
(Mr.  T.  went  next  door  for  that  purpose.)  P.:  'It  was  Uncle 
Jerry,  the  one  that  had  the  fall.  I'll  bring  you  some  more  news 
of  him.  Give  me  back  his  nine-shooter.  (Meaning  the  watch.) 
[Here  hair  was  brought  in,  and  O.  L.  and  A.  L.  were  ordered  by 
Dr.  P.  to  "clear  out,"  which  they  did.]  I  don't  care  to  talk 
diseases  before  everybody.  [Note  0.]  Confound  it,  I  saw 
your  influence  before  anyone  else  here.  Didn't  the  Captain  tell 
you?  You  lost  your  purse,  and  if  you  had  told  me  I  could 

have  found  it Mighty  mean  trick  about  the  purse !     Lord ! 

done  as  quick  as  a  fly.     [Note  P.]     Who  is  the  lady  wears  a 


440    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

cap  in  the  spirit?  She  don't  part  her  hair  in  the  middle — she 
sends  her  love  to  you  (Mrs.  T.).'  Mrs.  T. :  'Perhaps  it  is  my 
mother.'  P. :  '  Well,  I  see  more  than  a  dozen  ladies,  but  she 
wears  a  lace  cap.  There  was  some  throat  trouble  in  your  mother. 
(Indicating.)  [Note  Q,~\  The  mother  of  one  of  you  is  in  the 
body.  I  think  it  is  the  gentleman's.  She  is  an  angel— she  is  & 
good  woman — has  some  trouble  with  ankle — left  one — it  catches 
her.  She  will  be  with  you  for  some  time.'  [Note  R.~\  " 

NOTES 

"  0.  Mr.  T.'s  daughter's  headaches  well  described,  and  some 
rery  old-fashioned  herb  remedies  suggested,  with  the  recom- 
mendation to  see  him  (Dr.  P.)  again  in  six  weeks  if  not  cured. 

"  P.  Mr.  T.  was  robbed  of  his  purse  in  London  30  years  ago 
— serious  matter  to  him  then. 

"  Q.  Remarkably  correct  description  of  Mrs.  T.'s  mother,  who 
always  wore  lace  caps  and  with  ribbons  to  hide  a  lump  on  throat 
— she  parted  her  hair  at  side. 

"  B.  Mr.  T.'s  mother,  aged  81,  living  in  Cheshire.  The  state- 
ment about  pain  in  ankle  was  true;  she  had  rheumatic  pains  in 
left  ankle  at  the  time." 

Sitting  46.     Christmas  Day,  1889.     (Pr.VI,512f.) 

"  Present :  O.  L.  and  Alfred  Lodge 

"  P. :  '  How  are  you,  Captain  ?  Who  have  you  got  to  see  us 
this  time  ? '  O.  L. :  '  No  one.  We  are  having  this  to  ourselves.' 
P. :  '  How's  Mr.  Thompson?  He's  all  right,  is  he?  I  am  pleased 
he  was  here.  How  are  you,  Alfred  ? . . .  Give  me  some  things  of 

Aunt  Anne's,  and  give  me  Uncle  Jerry's  watch  again Aunt 

Anne  wants  to  know  where  her  very  dark  brown  cloak  is;  if 
Eleanor  has  it.  A  funny-looking  thing;  is  that  what  you  call 
sealskin  ?  She  would  like  Ellen  to  have  it.  They  want  Eleanor 
— Ellenelly — Ellen  to  make  a  change  in  her  surroundings,  for 
her  good,  at  least  until  Alfred  is  settled.  She  is  all  mixed  up 
now.  [True.]  She  should  come  into  your  surroundings,  the 
work  will  be  good  for  her,  it  will  take  her  out  of  herself.  Give 
her  something  to  think  about,  it  will  be  better  for  her  physically 
and  every  way.  Your  mother  says  so,  Uncle  Jerry  says  so, 
Uncle  John  says  so,  your  mother  and  father  say  so,  and  Aunt 
Anne  says  so.  There  now,  they  are  very  anxious  about  it.'  [All 
these  were  no  longer  living,  and  Phinuit  professed  to  speak  for 
them  from  the  spirit  world.  H.H.]  O.  L. :  '  But  they  must  send 
her  name  better.' 

"  [NOTE  (Pr.VI,507).— [L.].  The  welfare  of  my  only  sister, 
Eleanor,  commonly  called  Nellie,  much  younger  than  the 
brothers,  and  left  in  their  charge  is  naturally  a  care  to  us,  and 
the  advice  given  and  subsequently  iterated  again  and  again  by 
Phinuit,  as  the  one  message  which  my  mother  was  anxious  to 
send,  is  extremely  natural.  Mrs.  Piper  had  not  seen,  nor  so  far 


Ch.  XXX]  Lodge  Family  Controls  441 

as  I  know  heard  of,  my  sister,  who  was  in  Staffordshire  during 
this  first  series;  but  at  the  second  series  of  sittings  she  was 
present  on  a  short  visit.  The  state  of  her  health  has  for  some 
time  made  her  place  of  abode  and  study  a  serious  consideration.] 

"  P. :  '  Give  me  a  pencil.  (Wrote  on  back  of  letter  while  hold- 
ing it  to  forehead  the  word  '  Nellie '  distinctly.)  There,  that's 
her  name,  and  that's  your  Aunt  Anne's  writing;  she  wrote  it. ... 
This  was  a  Russian  watch — the  Emperor  of  Russia  once  had  it. 
[Know  nothing  of  this.]  . . .  Captain,  your  friends  [in  "  spirit 
world."  H.H.]  are  very  anxious  about  Nelly.  They  Wow  she's 
not  been  feeling  well.  Let  her  be  in  your  surroundings  for  a 
little  while.  It  will  do  her  good.  If  you  can't  see  it  now  you 

will  see  it  in  the  future It's  true,  I  tell  you.  They  know 

what  they  are  talking  about Our  poor  little  Alfred  [her 

brother.  11.11.  |  can't  see  it  as  we  can.  He  wants  her  in  his 
surroundings  to  be  with  him.  Your  mother  says  it's  not  wise, 
not  yet,  anyhow. . . .  She  says  distinctly,  "  She  must  be  in  Oliver's 
surroundings  for  a  while."  [All  this  advice  would  be  exceed- 
ingly important  if  it  could  be  depended  on Her  keeping 

house  for  Alfred  was  one  of  the  floating  ideas.]  To  appre- 
ciate my  advice  is  one  thing,  to  remember  me  is  another.  Don't 
forget  me,  my  boy.  Jerry  says,  "  Do  you  know  Bob's  got  a  long 
skin — a  skin  like  a  snake's  skin — upstairs,  that  Jerry  got  for 
him  ?  "  It's  one  of  the  funniest  things  you  ever  saw.  Ask  him 
to  show  it  you.  Oh,  hear  them  talking !  Captain ! ' 

"  [  L.  J  This  episode  of  the  skin  is  noteworthy.  I  cannot 
imagine  that  I  ever  had  any  knowledge  of  it.  Here  is  my  Uncle 
Robert's  account  of  it  when  I  asked  him  about  it : '  Yes,  a  crinkly 
thin  skin,  a  curious  thing;  I  had  it  in  a  box,  I  remember  it  well. 
Oh,  as  distinct  as  possible.  Haven't  seen  it  for  years,  but  it 
was  in  a  box  with  his  name  cut  in  it;  the  same  box  with  some 
of  his  papers.'"  [Teloteropathy  from  Uncle  R?  H.H.] 

Sitting  47.  Evening  of  Christmas  Day,  1889.  (Pr.VT,516f.) 
"Present:  O.  J.  L.  and  A.  L.  (taking  notes). 
" '  Captain,  do  you  know  that  as  I  came  I  met  the  medium 
going  out  [i.e.,  his  spirit  met  the  medium's  spirit?  H.H.], 
and  she's  crying.  Why  is  that  ? '  [Why  couldn't  he  know  tel- 
epathically,  if  telepathy  accounts  for  all  this?  H.H.]  O.  L.: 
'Well,  the  fact  is  she's  separated  from  her  children  for  a  few 
days,  and  she  is  feeling  rather  low  about  it.'  P. :  '  How  are  you, 
Alfred?  I've  your  mother's  influence  strong.  (Pause.)  By 
George !  that's  Aunt  Anne's  ring  (feeling  ring  I  had  put  on  my 
hand  just  before  sitting),  given  over  to  you.  [Aunt  Anne 
takes  control?  H.H.]  And  Oily  dear,  that's  one  of  the  last 
things  I  ever  gave  you.  It  was  one  of  the  last  things  I 
said  to  you  in  the  body  when  I  gave  it  you  for  Mary.  I 
said,  "  For  her,  through  you." '  [This  is  precisely  accurate. 
The  ring  was  her  most  valuable  trinket,  and  it  was  given 


442    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

in  the  way  here  stated  not  long  before  her  death.]  . . .  O.  L. : 
1  Yes,  I  remember  perfectly.'  A.  A. :  'I  tell  you  I  know  it. 
I  shall  never  forget  it.  Keep  i^  in  memory  of  me,  for  I  am 
not  dead.  Each  spirit  is  not  so  dim  ( ?)  that  it  cannot  recollect 
its  belongings  in  the  body.  They  attract  us  if  there  has  been 
anything  special  about  them.  I  tell  you,  my  boy,  I  can  see  it 
just  as  plain  as  if  I  were  in  the  body.  It  was  the  last  thing  I 
gave  you,  for  her,  through  you,  always  in  remembrance  of  me. 
(Further  conversation  and  advice,  ending)  Convince  yourself, 
[Kegarding  spirits'  survival  ?  H.H.]  and  let  others  do  the  same. 
We  are  all  liable  to  make  mistakes;  but  you  can  see  for  your- 
self  ' 

"  P. :  '  Give  me  that  watch.  [Trying  to  open  it.]  Here,  open 
it.  Take  it  out  of  its  case.  Jerry  says  he  took  his  knife  once 
and  made  some  little  marks  up  here  with  it,  up  here  near  the 
handle,  near  the  ring,  some  little  cuts  in  the  watch.  Look  at  it 
afterwards  in  a  good  light  and  you  will  see  them.'  [There  is  a 
little  engraved  landscape  in  the  place  described,  but  some  of  the 
skylines  have  been  cut  unnecessarily  deep,  I  think,  apparently 
out  of  mischief  or  idleness.  Certainly  I  knew  nothing  of  this, 
and  had  never  before  had  the  watch  out  of  its  case.— O.J.L.]  " 
Extract  from  letter  [from  Uncle  Robert].  (Pr.VI,528.) 
"  GREAT  GEARIES,  ILFORD,  September  16th,  1890. 

"  As  you  wished  me  to  send  you  notes  of  anything  that  struck 

me  in  the  report  of  Mrs.  Piper's  sittings — here  goes The 

marks  on  the  watch  I  do  not  think  were  made  by  him,  as  I 
cannot  remember  his  having  a  repeater  until  he  lost  his  sight. 
The  term  'little  shaver'  fits  his  method  of  expression  to  a  T." 

Sitting  49.    December  26ta,  1889.    (Pr.VI,520f.) 
"Present:  O.  L.,  alone;  afterwards  M.  L.  also. 

" Then  came  Mrs.  Lodge,  and  Phinuit  began  to  diagnose 

her  illness,  which  he  did  very  exactly,  and  to  prescribe  for  her. 
The  prescription  was  wild  carrot  infusion  and  laudanum  lotions, 
with  precise  and  minute  instructions.  The  prescriptions  have 
done  good.  The  complaint  has  been  a  long-standing  one." 

In  connection  with  this  should  be  read  the  following  (Pr. 
VI,  546-7) : 

"  P. :  '  Mary,  you  come  here ;  let  those  people  clear  out.  You 
have  been  taking  carrot.'  M.  L. :  '  Yes,  you  told  me  to.'  P. : 
'  Yes,  I  know.  Well,  now  you  have  taken  plenty  of  that.  Get 
some  Uva3  Ursi.  Do  you  know  what  that  is?  (No.)  Well,  it's 
mountain  cranberry.  Get  some  of  those  leaves.  You  can  get 
the  infusion,  but  leaves  are  better  because  pure.  Let  them  steep 
and  take  a  wineglassful  before  going  to  bed.  Take  it  instead  of 
carrot  for  three  weeks  and  then  carrot  again.  (Medical  details 
gone  into,  accurate  in  general,  but  one  statement  which  turned 
out  false.  Prescribed  also  for  third  boy,  viz.,  2oz.  Huxum's 


€h.  XXX]  Phinuit's  Prescriptions  443 

tincture  of  cinchona,  2oz.  French  dialyzed  iron,  and  4oz.  drug- 
gists' simple  syrup;  a  teaspoonful  after  shaking  in  wineglass  of 
water,  with  a  few  drops  of  lemon  juice  or  other  acid.)  He  has 
a  pain  here  when  he  runs,  blood  poor,  &c.  [Details  correct.] 
Give  him  milk,  lime  water,  and  eggs.'  (Further  advice  to  M. 
L.,  who  having  had  the  influenza  badly,  was  in  low  spirits,  with 
attempts  to  cheer  her.)  " 

And  yet  more  than  one  objector  has  said  that  Phinuit  is 
absolutely  ignorant  of  medicine! 

Here  is  a  strange,  strange  circumstance.  It  fits  well  enough 
here  to  justify  an  episode.  June  26,  1895,  Phinuit  says  to 
Professor  Newbold,  as  per  the  unpublished  Notes : 

"  Nothing  special  the  matter  with  your  liver,  but  it  is  inactive 
sometimes  and  that  throws  the  bile  into  the  stomach.  Do  you 
know  what  aloes  are?  Get  some  rhubarb,  aloes,  and  mandrake, 
5/8  grain  of  aloes,  2/8  mandrake,  and  1/8  of  rhubarb  com- 
pounded into  a  small  pill  and  take  one  every  night." 

Now  years  ago  I  was  very  seriously  troubled  by  bile  working 
up  into  the  stomach.  A  very  great  physician  gave  me  Elixir 
Euonymus,  which  acted  like  magic.  I  learned  that  it  was  a 
cholagogue.  A  few  months  ago  I  said :  "  By  the  way,  Doctor, 
I  may  have  to  go  to  Euonymus  again,  but  it  has  always 
struck  me  as  strange  that  when  I  was  troubled  by  excess  of 
bile,  you  gave  me  a  drug  to  make  more.  It  did  the  trick, 
however,  and  that's  enough."  I  forget  his  answer:  for  I 
was  leaving  somewhat  hastily,  having  already  used  up  more 
time  than  either  of  us  had  to  spare.  Probably  no  more  passed 
than  a  laugh  over  the  satisfactory  result  of  the  paradox.  I 
remember  that  he  admitted  it  to  be  a  paradox,  and  that  I  felt 
that  his  facing  it  and  doing  his  work  in  spite  of  it,  was  an 
illustration  of  his  greatness.  Well,  here  is  Phinuit  doing  pre- 
cisely the  same  thing!  Now  was  Mrs.  Piper,  masquerading  as 
Phinuit,  a  really  great  doctor  too?  Or  was  Phinuit  really 
himself  and  a  great  doctor?  He  was  no  doctor  at  all,  accord- 
ing to  several  skeptical  commentators — not  in  the  opinion  of 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  however,  in  whose  family  he  "  practised," 
and  whose  opinions  are  thought  worthy  of  respect  by  the  people 
in  England  who  confer  knighthoods,  and  elect  the  presidents 
of  the  A.  A.  S.,  not  to  speak  of  those  everywhere  who  grate- 
fully read  his  writings  and  profit  by  his  investigations. 

Do  you  realize  that  through  Mrs.  Piper,  a  woman  of  no 


444    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

special  education  or  capacity,  except  in  her  strange  gift  when 
she  was  not  herself,  spoke  a  trained,  judicious,  resourceful,  and 
successful  physician?  This  physician  used  slang  and  swore. 
So  have  a  great  many  other  good  physicians.  He  was  vain. 
So  are  a  great  many  other  good  physicians.  He  pieced  out 
his  knowledge  with  conjecture.  That's  the  habit,  and  even 
the  tradition,  of  the  profession — it  is  necessary  in  many  cases, 
more  than  in  any  other  profession  in  the  main  honest.  With 
unvarying  labor  and  patience,  despite  a  little  humorous  irri- 
tability, this  physician  treated  many  people,  as  we  have  seen 
and  shall  see  more  later,  to  their  physical  and  emotional  good, 
and  he  misled  no  man  to  his  hurt.  Was  she  that  physician? 
Did  she  get  the  knowledge,  training,  character,  telepathically 
from  some  other  physician?  Account  for  it  in  all  ways  yet 
tried,  is  not  the  simplest  and  most  rational  just  the  plain 
fact?  Beside  this  explanation  every  other  yet  offered  is 
labored,  sophisticated,  and  self-deceiving.  This  one,  it  is  true, 
is  counter  to  nearly  all  human  experience.  So  are  a  great 
many  things  that  people  don't  bend  all  their  energies  to  make 
seem  different  from  what  they  appear.  I  am  not  arguing  for 
spiritism :  I  don't  yet  know  whether  to  "  believe  "  in  it  or  not. 
I'm  arguing  only  for  common  sense,  as  I  see  it,  and  honesty 
towards  one's  self  wherever  the  ways  may  lead.  They  may, 
on  the  whole,  lead  away  from  spiritism,  for  all  I  know,  but 
they  don't  in  this  case. 

But  to  return  to  the  sitting  (Pr.  VI,  522)  : 

"  P. :  '  She  has  a  picture  of  him.  [Apparently  Lady  Lodge's 
deceased  brother.  H.H.]  They  talked  about  having  it  copied.' 
[Right]  M.  L.:  'What  sort  of  picture?'  P.:  'It's  a  paint- 
ing of  him.'  M.  L.:  'Who  did  it?'  P.:  'Wait  a  bit,  I'll 
ask  him.  Oh,  I  see,  you  done  it  yourself.  [Again,  telepathy 
would  hardly  give  him  bad  grammar  from  Lady  Lodge.  H.H.] 
[True,  and  he  used  to  be  pleased  with  it.]  He  says  so.  It's  a 
good  one.  You're  a  good  little  girl,  Mary.  I  say,  do  you  know 
who  Isabella  is?'  M.  L.:  'Yes,  yes.'  P.:  'Oh,  it  is  splendid; 
you  never  saw  her  sad.  Though  she  had  her  troubles,  too.' 
M.  L. :  '  She  had,  indeed.'  P. :  '  She  is  as  beautiful  as  ever,  and 
as  pure  as  the  snow.  She's  a  good  creature.'  [Isabella  takes 
possession.  H.H.]  '  I  tell  you,  you  dear  thing,  to  be  as  brave  as 
I  was — always  do  the  best  you  can ;  do  what  your  conscience  tells 
you.  Take  that  advice  from  Isabella.  Oh,  what  larks  we  had! 
Oh!  (Laughing  all  over.)  Do  you  remember  Clara?  (Laugh- 


Ch.  XXX]       Lodge  and  Thompson  Families  445 

ing  again,  and  jigging  about  in  chair.)  I'll  sing  for  you.  Why, 
Mary  dear,  who  ever  thought  to  see  you  again  like  this,  and 
Oliver  too?  Oh,  such  fun!  What  shall  I  do  for  you  now  I'm 
here  ? '  M.  L. :  '  Sing  us  one  of  your  songs.'  I. :  '  Shall  I  ?  You 
used  to  sing  and  play  some  yourself.  Your  papa  and  I  have 
more  fun  than  you  could  shake  a  stick  at.  Mary,  how  fat  you 
are!  Where  are  your  crimps?  (Feeling  hair.)  You  used  to 
crimp  it.  [True.]  Getting  lazy,  eh?  Well,  this  is  fun  to  see 
you  again.  Oh,  I  do  feel  so  happy.  (Dr.  P.  chuckling.)  She 
whistled,  and  away  she  goes.  I  never  saw  such  a  merry  girl  as 
that,  never.  How  happy  she  is.  Mary,  it's  about  time  you 
brightened  up.'  [This  extraordinary  episode  was  very  realistic, 
and  represented  our  memory  of  a  bright-dispositioned  aunt  by 
marriage  of  my  wife's.]  " 

(Sitting  50,  last  of  first  aeries.  December  26th,  1889. 
(Pr.VI,523f.) 
"  Present :  O.  L.  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thompson ;  later  M.  L.  also 
" (To  Mrs.  L.)  :  '  Aunt  Izzie  wants  to  talk  to  you.  [See 
previous  sitting,  '  Isabella ';  Aunt  Izzie  was  her  familiar  name.] 
[She  takes  possession.  H.H.]  'Shall  I  sing  to  you?  What 
would  you  like?  You  have  not  been  well  lately.  Are  you  glad 
to  hear  of  Aunt  Izzie?  I  could  almost  come  back  and  die  over 
again  to  see  you.  You  tell  Mary  that  her  sister  Isabel  still  lives; 
tell  her  she  has  done  nobly;  tell  her  William  and  I  are  together. 
That  lazy  gardener ! '  [This  message  is  exceedingly  intelligible. 
The  Mary  referred  to  is  my  wife's  mother,  recently  widowed,  and 
left  with  a  house  and  garden  to  manage  in  Staffordshire.  '  Aunt 
Izzie '  had  been  staying  with  her  quite  recently,  at  a  time  when 
the  gardener  was  troublesome.]  (Then  the  voice  and  manner 
changed  [to  Gurney.  H.H.]  'Don't  give  up  a  good  thing, 

Lodge ' 

"Mr.  T.:  'Can  you  tell  me  about  my  other  sister?'  P.: 
'  Sarah— no— Eliza-Maria— that's  it.  She's  all  right.  We  are 
together  and  happy.  That's  Ted's  sister  and  Ike's  sister.  She 
and  Ted  and  father  are  all  together.  She  teaches  entirely,  and  is 
very  religious.  But  she  doesn't  know  you  (Mrs.  T.)  in  spec- 
tacles. (Took  them  off.)  That's  right;  now  I  know  you 

Cap'n,  I'm  going  to  leave  you.  God  bless  you  and  keep  you  in 
His  holy  keeping.  God  bless  you,  Susie,  Ike,  Marie,  and  Cap- 
tain !  Cap'n,  I  hate  to  leave  you,  but  I've  got  to  go.  Au  revoir, 
au  revoir!  Marie.  I've  got  to  go,  but  not  for  long;  hope  to  see 
you  soon  again.  Cap'n,  speak  to  me  again.  Good-by,  good-by, 
good-by.' " 

End  of  the  First  Series  of  Liverpool  Sittings. 

Sitting  77.    (First  after  interval.)    January  31st,  1890. 

(Pr.VI,531f.) 

"  Present :  O.  L.,  M.  L.,  and,  for  first  time,  E.  C.  L. 
"  After  recognitions  and  greetings,  and  saying  that  Myers  had 


446    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV  j 

told  him  to  take  care  of  the  medium  and  not  stay  too  long,  he 
[Phinuit.  H.H.]  began  sending  messages  about  my  sister,  but 
speedily  became  aware  of  someone  present  and  recognized  her 

with  '  Hallo,  by  George,  that's  Nelly Come  here,  Siss  (to 

Nellie).  [Sir  Oliver's  sister.  Phinuit  sees  her  (?)  for  the  first 
time,  and  recognizes  her.  Cf.  pp.  440-1.  H.H.]  Your  father  [i.e., 
his  "  spirit."  H.H.]  wants  me  to  look  at  you.  Oh,  you're  not  at 
all  right.  You're  wrong.'  E.  C.  L.: '  Oh,  I'm  pretty  well.'  P.: 
'  You  feel  pretty  well,  but  you're  not.  You  haven't  a  right  cir- 
culation at  all.  You  are  what  they  call  anaemic,'  &c.  [Full  med- 
ical details  given  at  considerable  length,  all  true,  and  prescrip- 
tions practically  identical  with  what  had  been  tried  by  London 
and  Malvern  consulting  physicians.  Then  advice  given  to  stay 
with  me  instead  of  elsewhere.]  " 

Sitting  79.  February  1st,  1890.  (Pr.VI,536f.) 
"  [Here  M.  L.  entered  with  our  second  boy,  who  had  begged  to 
see  Dr.  Phinuit,  all  the  children  being  curious  about  the  strange 
voice.  Phinuit  immediately  personated  A[unt]  A[nne.]  . . . 
A.  A.:  'Mary,  bring  him  here.  You  dear  little  fellow.  God^ 
bless  you.  That's  what's  his  name.  Oliver  dear,  have  I  lost  my 
memory?  That's  Burney,  Bury  B,  Bodie  Brodie.  Yes,  Brodie. 
[The  name  Burney  is,  as  it  happens,  a  natural  one  to  occur  first 
to  A.  A.]  I  remember  you,  my  dear,  when  you  were  quite  small 
— light  hair — a  chubby  little  thing.  You  don't  remember  Aunt 
Anne  ? '  M.  L. :  '  No.'  A.  A. :  <  He  was  the  last,  I  think.  Let's 
see,  another  older  and  another  younger.  Yes,  three.  One  older 
and  one  younger.'  M.  L. :  '  Yes,  there  were  three.'  A.  A. :  '  But 
this  was  my  boy.  Oliver,  wasn't  that  the  last?  Seems  to  me 
another  one  that  I  saw.'  O.  L. :  '  Yes,  three  altogether.'  A.  A. : 
'  Another  boy.  Three  boys.  One  named  after  your  father '  (to 
M.  L.).  M.  L.:'Yes.'  A.  A.  :<  That  was  the  last.'  (Further 
friendly  remarks  to  Brodie  about  his  lessons  and  so  on.  Some 
from  Phinuit  speaking  in  his  own  person.  Ending :)  '  Glad  to 
see  that  fellow;  done  me  good.  [The  grammar  puzzle  again. 
H.H.]  Good-by,  Brodie.  That's  a  piece  to  make  a  man  of.  Let 

him  go That  boy  is  a  deep  thinker Nell  [Sir  O.'s  sister], 

how's  your  heart?  Smashed  yet?'  E.  C.  L.:  'My  what?' 
P. :  '  No,  no,  it's has  had  his  heart  smashed.  [Convention- 
ally true.]  . . .  Nelly,  have  you  got  your  medicine  ? '  E.  C.  L. : 
'  No.'  P. :  '  She  must  take  it  (and  so  on,  insisting  on  her  taking 
it,  which  she  had  not  intended  to  do).  Nell,  how  do  you  suppose 
f  knew  the  name  of  the  man  owning  the  chain  ? '  E.  C.  L. :  '  ij 
can't  imagine.'  P. :  '  No,  can  you  tell  a  body's  name  like  that  ? ' 
E.  C.  L. : '  No.'  P. :  '  No,  it  will  be  a  good  test,  to  him  and  to  the 
world.  Be  a  good  girl.  God  watch  over  you,  bless  you,  and  all 
good  spirits  guide  and  help  you.  I'll  see  you  again.  I  must  go. 
Au  revoir.'" 


Ch.  XXX]          More  of  Thompson  Family  447 

Sitting  80.    February  2nd,  1890.    (Pr.VI,539f.) 

"Present:  E.  C.  L.  and  O.  L.  (E.  C.  L.  holding  hands. 
O.  L.  taking  notes.) 

" P. :  '  Here's  Ted  Thompson,  he  says  it  was  only  the 

child's  erratic  condition,  but  a  good  thing  really,  and  it  will 
come  out  all  right.  We  knew  it  was  going  to  happen,  but  didn't 

think  it  worth  bothering  about She  was  afraid  of  being 

snubbed.  What  on  earth  is  he  talking  about?  He  don't  want 
me  to  know  what  he  means.  He  says:  "  Tell  Ike  it's  all  right; 
'  try  again '  never  was  beat.  It  will  come  out  all  right.  And 
tell  Susie  too." ' 

"  [Mr.  Thompson  had  been  much  troubled  by  a  young  daugh- 
ter having  run  home  from  school.  This  happened  since  the  first 
series  of  sittings.  Nothing  had  been  said  about  it,  and  I  was 
curious  to  see  whether  Dr.  Phinuit  would  get  hold  of  it.  The 
Thompsons  had  not  been  in  during  this  present  series.  '  Ike ' 
and  '  Susie '  are  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thompson ] 

"  Ted  (control) : '  Maria's  all  right,  tell  them.  She  passed  out 
at  12  years  old.  [True.]  He  sends  his  love  to  his  mother. 
Who  are  you  ? '  O.  L. :  '  I  am  a  friend  of  your  brother  and  live 
next  door.  I  hope  he  will  be  able  to  come  and  see  you  next  time 
if  you  will  come  again.  He  is  a  good  friend  of  mine.'  T. : '  That 
will  be  very  kind  of  you.  I  do  not  wish  to  intrude  or  take  up 
your  time,  but  if  you  can  arrange  this  it  will  be  very  kind.  I 
was  going  to  be  a  physician  myself,  but  was  cut  off.  [True.] 
I  do  not  regret  it.  Happiness  reigns  in  my  veins.  And  tefl 
Ike,  if  you  please,  to  go  and  see  mother  often,  and  that  Fanny 
had  better  stay  with  her  for  the  present.  He  will  understand. 
[Quite  intelligible.]  . . .  Ask  him  not  to  let  trivial  things  bother 
him.  He  has  been  fretting  lately.  Send  her  [the  runaway 
schoolgirl.  1 1.  II .  ]  to  another  place  and  she  won't  fly  back  again. 
She  was  a  little  bit  homesick.  There  are  a  good  many  have 
done  it  before,  and  will  do  it  again.  Don't  lay  it  up  against 
her  for  too  long.  [Quite  intelligible  and  useful  advice.]  Tell 
them  I  am  unseen  but  in  peace  and  happiness.  Remember  me 
to  Ike,  and  if  you  will  let  me  see  him  again  I  shall  be  grateful. 
I  do  not  want  to  annoy  you  but  he  was  my  brother  and  I  am 
very  fond  of  him.'" 

Sitting  No.  83,  last  in  England.    February  3rd,  1890. 
(Pr.VI,550f.) 

"Present:  O.  L.,  E.  C.  L.,  and  afterwards  Mr.  and  Mrs.  T. 
and  M.  L. 

" P. :  '  Ike,  did  you  ever  hear  from  me  and  from  father 

before? '  Mr.  T. :  '  No,  never  before  just  lately.'  P.:  '  That's  a 
mistake,  Ike.  You  heard  once  before  some  time  ago.  You 
shouldn't  forget.'  Mr.  T. :  '  Oh,  yes,  so  I  did,  many  years  ago. 
For  the  moment  I  did  not  think  of  it.'  [Referring  to  an  old 
interview  which  his  friends  had  had  with  some  medium  at  Bris- 


448    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt,  IV 

tol,  when  vivid  personal  messages  from  Dr.  T.  were  likewise  sup- 
posed to  be  sent.]  . . .  P. :  '  Now,  all  you  people  come  here.  Good- 
by,  Susie.  Good-by,  Ike.  Good-by,  Nelly.  Now,  all  clear  out 
and  let  me  talk  to  Marie.  (Long  conversation  of  a  paternal 
kind,  with  thoroughly  sensible  advice.  Then  O.  L.  returned.) 
Captain,  it's  not  good-by,  it's  au  revoir,  and  you  shall  hear  of  me 
when  I've  gone  away.'  O.  L.:  'How  can  I?'  P.:  'Oh,  I  will 
tell  some  gentleman  a  message  and  he  will  write  it  for  me. 
You'll  see. 

" '  Au  revoir,  au  revoir/  &c." 

End  of  Second  Series  of  Sittings  at  Liverpool. 

and  last  of  Phinuit  and  his  Lodge  friends;  and  my  scraps, 
though  selected  with  great  care  and  labor,  must  give  a  very 
inadequate  idea  of  their  association.  I  strongly  recommend 
the  interested  reader  to  get  Pr.  Part  (not  Volume)  XVII. 

We  now  reach  the  sittings  edited  by  Dr.  Leaf  (Pr.  VI, 
558-615). 

Dr.  Leaf  speaks  of  Phinuit's  "  complete  ignorance  of 
French."  This  has  already  been  disposed  of.  It  is  not 
strange,  however,  that  testimony  of  what  occurs  in  these 
foggy  regions  is  contradictory:  it  is  hard  enough  to  get  good 
evidence  in  everyday  affairs.  Dr.  Leaf  also  ascribes  to  Phinuit 
rather  more  "  fishing  "  than  other  commentators  do,  and  gives 
ingenious  demonstrations  of  it,  but  yet  says  (Pr.  VI,  56 If.) : 

"  His  supposed  fishing  was  employed,  if  at  all,  only  when  the 
supernormal  power  was  for  a  time  in  abeyance;  possibly  it  is 
only  an  imagination  of  my  own.  But  even  with  all  risk  of 
being  misunderstood,  it  seems  essential  that  this  side  should  be 
put  forward,  if  only  to  show  that  the  investigators  were  fully 
alive  to  all  the  various  methods  by  which  it  might  be  possible 
to  take  advantage  of  their  credulity  or  carelessness.  The  more  I 
consider  the  whole  of  the  evidence,  the  more  I  remain  convinced 
that  it  gives  proof  of  a  real  supernormal  power,  subject,  how- 
ever, under  conditions  at  which  we  can  hardly  even  guess,  to 
periods  of  temporary  eclipse 

"  It  is  probable  that  here  a  certain  amount  of  muscle-reading 
was  called  into  play  as  a  guide  to  a  right  conclusion.  The 
medium  usually  sat  with  the  hand  of  the  sitter  pressed  to  her 
forehead.  The  attitude  is  a  favorite  one  with  so-called  thought- 
reading  performers.  [As  already  said,  this  was  given  up  later, 
as  she  appeared  to  grow  in  power.  H.H.]  ...  A  very  common 
statement  was  that  some  relation  of  the  sitter  was  lame  in  the 
knee,  or  still  more  commonly  that  he  had  rheumatism  there. 
This  was  usually  accompanied  by  a  grasping  of  the  knee,  which 


Ch.  XXX]  Dr.  Leafs  Opinions  449 

euggests  muscle-reading.  In  one  case  the  suffering  was  followed 
downwards  and  rightly  located  in  the  toe.  At  other  times  the 
pain  was  said  to  be  in  the  head — headaches  or  neuralgia.  This 
was  equally  accompanied  by  feeling  over  the  sitter's  head.  Not 
only  are  rheumatism  and  headaches  two  of  the  commonest  of 
complaints,  and  the  most  likely  to  be  guessed  right,  but  the 
knee  and  the  head  were  the  most  accessible  portions  of  the 
sitter's  frame,  and  those  about  which  unconscious  information 
could  best  be  giTen.  '  Suffering  from  a  cold,'  too,  was  a  favor- 
ite diagnosis.  As  the  sittings  took  place  in  December  and  Jan- 
uary, and  the  later  ones  during  the  height  of  the  influenza  epi- 
demic, it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  this  was  generally  ad- 
mitted to  be  correct. 

"  I  have  now  gone  through  all  the  possible  explanations  of 
divination  by  fraud  which  after  a  careful  study  of  the  whole  of 
the  evidence  I  am  able  to  suggest.  It  will  be  found  that  they 
are  far  from  covering  the  whole  of  the  facts." 

Now  there  was  nothing  of  the  kind  in  my  sitting  some 
years  later,  or,  I  suspect,  in  any  of  the  sittings  after  the  ex- 
clusively writing  period  set  in.  The  time  has  passed  for  this 
sort  of  ingenuity,  and  commentators  seldom  trouble  them- 
selves with  it  now.  I  give  it,  however,  "  to  be  fair." 

Here  I  think  is  a  questionable  saltus,  unless  the  first  sen- 
tence is  restricted  to  the  incidents  in  hand  (Pr.  VI,  567) : 

"  Several  instructive  incidents  point  directly  against  any 
knowledge  derived  from  the  spirits  of  the  dead!  For  instance, 
in  Mrs.  H.  Leaf's  first  sitting  a  question  was  put  about '  Harry/ 
whose  messages  Phinuit  purported  to  be  giving:  'Did  he  leave 
a  wife  ? '  No  answer  was  given  to  this  at  the  time,  but  in 
accordance  with  Phinuit's  frequent  practice  the  supposed  hint 
was  stored  up  for  future  use ;  and  at  Mrs.  H.  Leafs  next  sitting 
she  was  told,  '  Harry  sends  his  love  to  his  wife.'  Now,  as  a 
matter  of  fact  Harry  never  was  married.  In  Mrs.  B.'s  second 
sitting  and  in  Mrs.  A.'s  account  of  her  brother's  suffering  in 
the  arm,  wrong  facts  were  stated  which  corresponded  to  the 
sitter's  belief.  This  evidently  indicates  thought-transference,  not 
spiritual  communication." 

It  seems  to  me,  as  perhaps  illustrated  in  the  first  sentence 
of  the  above  quotation,  that  commentators  generally  have 
erred  in  trying  to  restrict  mediumistic  phenomena  to  some  one 
of  several  causes — thought-transference,  fishing,  fraud,  sec- 
ondary personality,  or  that  merely  nominal  omnium  gatherum, 
the  subliminal  self,  whereas  there  is  a  strong  chance  that  al- 
most every  s&mce  shows  them  all,  in  the  case  of  the  honest 


450    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

mediums,  allowing  a  little  for  unconscious  fraud  and  fishing. 
In  this  view,  the  whole  thing  readily  comes  under  the  hypo- 
thesis of  the  Cosmic  Soul — of  ideas  and  impressions  of  all  sorts 
floating  about  the  universe — picked  up  in  all  sorts  of  ways 
and  in  all  sorts  of  combinations,  and  remodeled  into  all  sorts 
of  new  combinations.  Phinuit  as  above  gets  the  ideas  Harry, 
wife,  and  remolds  them  into  "  Harry  sends  his  love  to  his 
wife,"  just  as  in  the  case  I  gave  early,  Foster  got  the  ideas 
Sextus,  manuscripts,  publish,  and  blurted  out,  "  He  says : 
'  Publish  every  word  of  them,' "  when  Sextus,  I  know  if  I 
know  anything  unverified,  never  said  any  such  thing. 

It  is  quite  probable  too  that  all  the  ideas  Harry,  Sextus, 
manuscripts,  publish  came  from  the  sitter's  mind.  Wherever 
they  came  from,  they  were  parts  of  the  hypothetical  Cosmic 
Soul.  Now  in  that  hypothetical  soul  "  Harry  "  may  be  any- 
thing from  a  mere  name,  to  Colonel  Esmond,  or  the  Harry  in 
question,  just  as  Parthenon  may  be  a  name,  a  memory,  a  char- 
coal sketch,  a  photograph,  a  painting,  the  original  structure, 
a  restoration  of  it  in  picture  or  model,  or  the  ruins  still  left. 
And  the  aforesaid  "  Harry  "  may  be  a  memory  in  a  sitter's 
mind,  and  so  be  reflected  into  Phinuit's,  or  hypothetically  a 
survival  of  the  original  soul  once  expressed  in  a  visible  Harry, 
and  as  such  have  not  only  announced  himself  at  the  first  sit- 
ting, and  even  (for  "communications"  often  seem  difficult, 
and  often  are  plainly  open  to  misunderstanding)  have  started 
Phinuit  into  his  blunder  at  the  second  sitting,  by  trying  to 
send  some  message  to  the  sitter  which  Phinuit,  with  the  idea 
wife  already  in  his  head,  misunderstood.  But  even  if  we 
don't  grope  after  an  explanation  of  the  "  subliminal  self  "  but 
merely  cover  our  mysteries  with  that  name,  and  if  we  insist 
on  drawing  a  line  (which  the  hypothetical  cosmic  inflow  can 
save  us  the  trouble  of  doing)  between  thought-transference 
and  spiritism,  that  some  phenomena  are  due  to  the  one  does 
not  prevent  other  phenomena  being  due  to  the  other.  That 
most  of  the  inflows  of  the  Cosmic  Soul  in  dreams  are  inco- 
herent nonsense,  does  not  prevent  others  being  coherent,  up 
to  creations  transcending  the  art  of  the  waking  world,  and 
even  up  to  prophecy.  Don't  find  fault  with  all  this  because  it 
is  vague.  What  else  can  be  our  glimpses  into  the  unknown 
world  of  these  phenomena,  whether  it  is  a  post-mortem  world 


Ch.  XXX]         Phinuit  Reflects  Mrs.  Piper  451 

or  not  ?    Demand  only  that  what  we  think  we  see,  shall  not  be 
inconsistent  with  what  we  feel  clear  about. 
Dr.  Leaf  says  (Pr.  VI,  567) : 

"  On  the  whole,  then,  the  effect  which  a  careful  study  of  all 
the  reports  of  the  English  sittings  has  left  in  my  mind  is  this: 
That  Dr.  Phinuit  is  only  a  name  for  Mrs.  Piper's  secondary 
personality,  assuming  the  name  and  acting  the  part  with  the 
aptitude  and  consistency  which  is  shown  by  secondary  personali- 
ties in  other  known  cases." 

But  he  does  not  express  an  opinion  regarding  her  other 
controls,  or  whether  each  one  of  them  was  a  "secondary" 
personality;  or  how  many  thousand  secondary  personalities, 
and  of  how  many  sexes,  a  woman  can  have!  In  fact,  up  to 
the  stage  of  these  sittings,  these  questions  hardly  came  to  the 
surface,  because  nearly  all  of  the  alleged  communications 
were  through  Phinuit,  other  apparent  communicators  so 
seldom  taking  control  that  the  change  of  control  was  not  often, 
if  ever,  specially  noted  in  the  reports — a  grave  omission  which 
I  have  ventured  here  and  there  to  attempt  to  supply. 

Dr.  Leaf  gives  first  (Pr.  VI,  568-74)  a  very  remarkable 
case  of  telopsis  in  the  sitting  of  Mr.  J.  T.  Clarke  at  Professor 
W.  James's  house  at  Chocoma,  New  Hampshire.  I  have  no 
space  for  these  remarkable  sittings,  but  urge  them  on  the 
attention  of  the  interested  reader. 

Sitting  on  December  2Sth,  1889.     (Pr.VI,589.) 
"  Present :  Mrs.  Herbert  Leaf,  and  Walter  Leaf  reporting. 

Mrs.  H.  Leaf  was  introduced  as  '  Miss  Thompson.' 
" P. :  'I  see  you.    How  are  you,  you  lady ?    I  say,  Captain  1 

Captain,  come  here.'     ['  Captain '  is  the  name  by  which  Dr. 

Phinuit  speaks  of  Professor  Lodge.]     W.  L. :  '  The  captain  is 

not  here.'    P.:  'Oh,  then,  that's  you,  Walter?     Where  are  we 

now?    Where  be  IT" 

I  have  taken  the  above  for  its  next  to  last  word,  as  throwing 
some  possible  light  on  Phinuit.  "Where  be  I?"  is  rank 
Connecticut  Yankee  of  the  time  before  the  New  York  and 
New  Haven  Railroad  was  built.  It  is  probably  Massachusetts 
Yankee  too.  Mrs.  Piper  does  not  use  such  language,  but  it 
abounded  in  her  ancestry  and  "  surroundings."  Phinuit's  use 
of  it  is  the  extreme  illustration  of  that  strange  blend  of  New 
England  and  France  which  constitutes  him.  I  cannot  see, 
however,  that  this  disproves  the  previous  incarnation  of  the 


452    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

fellow.  On  the  cosmic-soul  hypothesis,  Phimrit's  portion  of 
it  has  often  been  in  the  same  receptacle  with  Mrs.  Piper's. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  her  exclusion  was  complete. 
In  fact,  many  considerations  look  as  if  any  number  of  souls 
— at  least  my  z  souls  on  p.  310 — might  telepathically  virtually 
occupy  the  same  body  at  the  same  time.  Of  course  there  is 
nothing  "  scientific  "  about  this  guess :  we  are  far  beyond  the 
reach  of  science.  Such  guesses,  however,  sometimes  suggest 
a  direction  in  which  it  pays  science  to  keep  an  eye  open.  But 
to  return  to  Phinuit  as  a  possible  guest  of  Mrs.  Piper's  mortal 
frame,  which  I  don't  believe  he  was — more  than  telepathically. 
Here  is  a  piece  of  intense  Phinuitism  (Pr.  VI,  595) : 

"  I  don't  think  Harry  ever  knew  him  [Professor  Verrall  ? 
H.H.] ;  he  passed  out  before  you  got  hitched. 

"  [Correct;  Harry  died  August,  1887,  and  I  was  married  the 
following  September.— K.M.L.]  " 

On  p.  606  of  Pr.  VI,  Professor  Macalister,  writing  to  Mr. 
Myers,  says: 

"  Mrs.  Piper  is  not  anaesthetic  during  the  so-called  trance,  and 
if  you  ask  my  private  opinion  it  is  that  the  whole  thing  is  an 
imposture  and  a  poor  one." 

Now  as  Mrs.  Piper  has  been  proved  "anesthetic  during 
the  so-called  trance  "  several  times  by  authorities  at  least  as 
high  as  Professor  Macalister  (James  being  one),  some  ques- 
tion arises  as  to  the  value  of  the  second  opinion  he  states,  and 
of  the  value  of  the  opinions  held  on  the  whole  subject  by  any 
excessively  scientific  person  without  enough  mediumistic 
faculty,  whatever  that  may  be,  to  make  a  good  sitter. 

This  somewhat  strenuous  observation  calls  for  a  word. 
I  have  already  spoken  of  the  advantage  of  a  sympathetic 
attitude  on  the  part  of  the  sitter.  There  seems  to  be  more  in 
this  than  merely  the  greater  liability  of  the  sympathetic  to 
be  gulled,  and  I  venture  on  a  few  suggestions  of  what  the 
"  more  "  may  be. 

People  in  general,  including  sitters,  fall  into  two  classes: 
those  of  the  intuitive,  humanistic,  and  sympathetic  make-up, 
and  those  of  the  calculating  scientific,  skeptical  make-up — 
"Platonists  and  Aristotelians."  The  first  group,  I  need 
hardly  say,  includes  the  poets  and  most  of  those  gener- 


Ch.  XXX]         Platonists  and  Aristotelians  453 

ally  called  philosophers — Socrates,  Plato,  and  Goethe.  The 
second  group  includes  Aristotle,  Bacon,  and  Spencer,  all  of 
whom  the  "  high  priori "  philosophers  hardly  admit  to  be 
philosophers  at  all. 

Now  the  first  group  seems  to  include  the  dreamers  and  the 
mediums.  Socrates  with  his  inner  voice  and  his  hours  of 
sleepless  unconsciousness,  was  in  all  probability  a  medium ;  and 
Plato  and  Goethe  were  both  great  dreamers;  while  regarding 
Aristotle,  Bacon,  and  Spencer  I  cannot  recall  at  the  moment 
any  assertion  of  remarkable  dreams. 

Now  it  is  noticeable  through  the  reports  that  scientific  men, 
especially  those  devoted  to  the  inorganic  sciences,  get  very 
little  out  of  the  sittings,  and  are  disposed  to  vote  them  all 
humbug.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  is  a  marked  exception.  Sir 
William  Crookes  and  Sir  William  Barrett  have  devoted  them- 
selves mainly  to  the  telekinetic  phenomena. 

I  am  as  far  as  possible  from  intimating  that  either  class  is 
superior  to  the  other.  It  would  be  interesting  to  debate 
whether  we  owe  more  to  Shakespere  or  to  Spencer,  although  I 
should  hardly  take  Shakespere  for  the  mediumistic  type  of 
man,  but  rather  (if  you  and  God  will  forgive  me),  for  the 
medium-mystic,  and  he  is  always  in  media  tutissimus. 

Assuming  the  generalizations  in  the  preceding  paragraphs 
to  be  well  founded,  we  might  risk  a  much  more  uncertain  one 
— that  as  truth  is  generally  indicated  first  to  the  intuitive  type 
of  mind — Kant  with  the  nebular  hypothesis  and  Goethe  with 
the  relations  of  the  vertebrae  to  the  skeleton  and  the  leaves  to 
the  plant — so  the  free  appearance  of  the  phenomena  of  medi- 
umship  to  the  intuitive  type  of  person,  and  the  scant  appear- 
ance to  the  scientific  type,  have  a  certain  correspondence  with 
Nature's  general  ways,  and  so  far  raise  a  presumption  that 
the  phenomena  are  normal  and  deserve  study.  There  may 
even  be  in  this  some  color  for  presumptions  going  farther. 

I  want,  however,  to  guard  against  being  supposed  to  rate 
intuition  higher  than  I  do.  Early  in  this  book  I  enlarged  on 
the  inevitability  of  intuitions  beyond  the  reports  of  senses  in 
course  of  evolution,  as  probably  all  our  senses  still  are.  Yet 
intuition  proves  nothing,  but  merely  points  ways  for  investi- 
gation— often  misleading  ways.  Nevertheless  a  man  cannot 
speak  of  it  with  any  respect  without  danger  of  being  supposed 


454    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

to  rate  it  as  high  as  did  the  German  professor  with  his  camel. 
Professor  Bergson  has  suffered  from  this — to  such  an  extent 
that  when,  before  his  American  lectures,  he  told  me  he  con- 
sidered intuition  inconclusive  without  verification,  I  was  a 
little  surprised;  and  when  I  told  Mr.  Eutgers  Marshall  what 
he  had  said,  I  was  thought  to  have  misunderstood  him. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  to  be  told  that  Professor  Mac- 
alister's  sitting  was  "  unsatisfactory,"  and  it  is  an  amusingly 
incorrect  one  throughout.  The  same  is  true  of  the  next  sit- 
ting, the  sitter's  account  of  which  begins  in  the  following  aus- 
picious manner,  but  note  well  the  last  line.  Mr.  Barkworth 
was  plainly  not  the  victim  of  any  gullible  sympathy. 

Mr.  T.  BarJcworth.  December  3rd.  (Pr.VI,606.) 
"  In  commencing  the  seance  I  held  the  medium's  hands,  which 
were  icy  cold  and  did  not  seem  to  gather  warmth.  Pulse  very 
feeble,  often  quite  imperceptible,  and  somewhat  rapid.  The 
medium  seemed  to  find  my  influence  uncongenial;  she  com- 
plained more  than  once  that  I  had  done  something  to  her,  that 
her  head  was  bad,  that  she  felt  queer,  had  never  felt  so  before, 
&c.  She  continually  groaned  as  if  in  suffering.  After  long 
waiting  Mr.  Myers  took  my  place  with  much  better  results." 

Professor  G.  H.  Darwin  (p.  627)  naturally  is  "wholly  un- 
convinced of  any  remarkable  powers  or  of  thought-transfer- 
ence." Equally  naturally,  though  conversely,  the  next  sitting 
with  Miss  Alice  Johnson  is  not  half  bad.  Yet  Dr.  Leaf  finds 
much  apparent  fishing  in  it,  but  ends  with  (Pr.  VI,  614)  : 

"  Even  on  the  most  unfavorable  view,  therefore,  it  seems  ne- 
cessary to  assume  more  than  chance  and  skill  in  order  to  explain 
this  sitting." 

The  following  of  course  falls  in  with  the  good  cases.  Un- 
fortunately, for  the  excellent  reasons  given  below,  no  details 
are  furnished. 

Miss  X.    December  1tJi.     (Pr.VI,629.) 

"  Miss  X.  was  introduced,  veiled,  to  the  medium  in  the  trance 
state,  immediately  after  her  arrival  at  Mr.  Myers'  house.  She 
was  at  once  recognized,  and  named.  'You  are  a  medium;  you 
write  when  you  don't  want  to.  You  have  got  Mr.  E.'s  influence 
about  you.  [E.  was  Edmund  Gurney.  Miss  X.  was  a  crystal- 
gazer,  and  very  prominent  in  the  S.P.R.  H.H.]  This  is  Miss 
X.  that  I  told  you  about.'  She  was  subsequently  addressed  by 


Ch.  XXX]  Miss  X.    Mr.  Konstamm  455 

her  Christian  name,  one  of  similar  sound  being  first  used  but 
corrected  immediately. 

"  A  large  part  of  the  statements  made  at  this  and  the  follow- 
ing sittings  were  quite  correct,  but  in  nearly  all  cases  of  so 
private  and  personal  a  nature  that  it  is  impossible  to  publish 
them.  [As  so  often  in  the  best  sittings.  H.H.]  . . .  But  these 
sittings  were  perhaps  the  most  successful  and  convincing  of  the 
whole  series 

" '  You  see  flowers  sometimes  ? '  (Asked,  *  What  is  my  favorite 
flower?  There  is  a  spirit  who  would  know.')  '  Pansies.  No, 
delicate  pink  roses.  You  have  them  about  you,  spiritually  as 
well  as  physically/  Miss  X.  has  on  a  certain  day  in  every  month 
a  present  of  delicate  pink  roses.  She  frequently  has  hallucina- 
tory visions  of  flowers." 

The  following  is  suggestive.  Compare  with  it  the  various 
remarks  on  the  influence  of  the  sitter. 

Mr.  E.  M.  Konstamm.    January  25th.    (Pr.VI,645.) 

" Mr.  K.  was  told  that  be  knew  one  Allen,  a  smart  fellow, 

but  lame.  This  the  sitter  is  inclined  to  refer  to  Mr.  Rider 
Haggard's  '  Allan  Quatermain.'  whose  adventures  he  had  just 
been  reading." 

Commenting  at  the  close  of  this  series  of  sittings,  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  says  (Pr.  VI,  647-8)  : 

"Is  thought-transference  from  the  sitter,  of  however  free 
and  unconscious  a  kind,  a  complete  and  sufficient  mode  of 
accounting  for  the  facts?  Mr.  Leaf  definitely  takes  the  posi- 
tion that ...  it  is  sufficient,  and,  considering  the  large  amount  of 
labor  he  has  spent  on  the  documents,  his  opinion  is  entitled  to 
very  great  weight.  For  myself,  I  am  not  so  convinced,  but  I  cor- 
dially admit  the  difficulty  of  any  disproof  of  his  position " 

Here  are  a  few  extracts  from  Professor  James's  paper  in 
this  same  volume  (Pr.  VI,  651f.) : 

"  As  for  the  explanation  of  her  trance-phenomena,  I  have  none 
to  offer.  The  primd  facie  theory,  which  is  that  of  spirit-control, 
is  hard  to  reconcile  with  the  extreme  triviality  of  most  of  the 
communications.  What  real  spirit,  at  last  able  to  revisit  his 
wife  on  this  earth,  but  would  find  something  better  to  say  than 
that  she  had  changed  the  place  of  his  photograph?  And  yet 
that  is  the  sort  of  remark  to  which  the  spirits  introduced  by  the 
mysterious  Phinuit  are  apt  to  confine  themselves.  I  must  admit, 
however,  that  Phinuit  has  other  moods.  He  has  several  times, 
when  my  wife  and  myself  were  sitting  together  with  him,  sud- 
denly started  off  on  long  lectures  to  us  about  our  inward  defects 
and  outward  shortcomings,  which  were  very  earnest,  as  well  as 


456    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

subtile  morally  and  psychologically,  and  impressive  in  a  high 
degree.  These  discourses,  though  given  in  Phinuit's  own  person, 
were  very  different  in  style  from  his  more  usual  talk,  and  prob- 
ably superior  to  anything  that  the  medium  could  produce  in  the 
same  line  in  her  natural  state." 

All  of  which  exceptional  facts  may  mean  simply  that  in 
this  case  the  sitter  had  the  exceptional  intellect  and  character, 
including  the  candor,  modesty,  and  capacity  of  self-examina- 
tion of  William  James.  Possibly  it  was  a  case  of  a  man  show- 
ing himself  to  himself — of  the  fourth-dimensional  trick  of 
turning  a  rubber  ball  inside  out  without  destroying  it — an 
anticipation  of  the  possible  port-mortem  privilege  of  each  soul 
as  a  member  of  the  Cosmic  Soul,  of  regarding  itself  face  to 
face — or  the  further  possibility  of  telepathically  regarding 
itself  as  reflected  in  another  soul.  This  last  possibility  is,  I 
suppose,  rank  spiritism.  I  rather  like  it. 

But  whatever  the  facts  mean,  they  do  not  necessarily  mean 
for  one  moment  that  the  "  control "  exercising  this  sympathy 
and  delivering  the  resulting  lecture,  was  not  a  discarnate  spirit 
that  had  been  incarnate  in  a  voluble  and  profane  but  very 
amiable  old  French  physician,  rather  mixed  in  a  good  many 
of  his  far-back  memories,  and  in  some  of  his  properties  much 
influenced  by  Yankee  contact.  James  goes  on  to  say  of  him 
(p.  655)  : 

"  Phinuit  himself,  however,  bears  every  appearance  of  being  a 
fictitious  being.  His  French,  so  far  as  he  has  been  able  to  dis- 
play it  to  me,  has  been  limited  to  a  few  phrases  of  salutation, 
which  may  easily  have  had  their  rise  in  the  medium's  '  uncon- 
scious '  memory ;  he  has  never  been  able  to  understand  my 
French  [He  understood  Mr.  Rich's,  Chap.  XXIX!  H.H.] ;  and 
the  crumbs  of  information  which  he  gives  about  his  earthly  ca- 
reer are,  as  you  know,  so  few,  vague,  and  unlikely  sounding,  as  to 
suggest  the  romancing  of  one  whose  stock  of  materials  for  in- 
vention is  excessively  reduced.  He  is,  however,  as  he  actually 
shows  himself,  a  definite  human  individual,  with  immense  tact 
and  patience,  and  great  desire  to  please  and  be  regarded  as  in- 
fallible. . . .  The  most  remarkable  thing  about  the  Phinuit  per- 
sonality seems  to  me  the  extraordinary  tenacity  and  minuteness 
of  his  memory.  The  medium  has  been  visited  by  many  hundreds 
of  sitters,  half  of  them,  perhaps,  being  strangers  who  have  come 
but  once.  To  each  Phinuit  gives  an  hourful  of  disconnected 
fragments  of  talk  about  persons  living,  dead,  or  imaginary,  and 
events  past,  future,  or  unreal.  What  normal  waking  memory 
could  keep  this  chaotic  mass  of  stuff  together?  Yet  Phinuit 


Ch.  XXX]  Discussion  by  James  457 

does  so;  for  the  chances  seem  to  be,  that  if  a  sitter  should  go 
back  after  years  of  interval,  the  medium,  when  once  entranced, 
would  recall  the  minutest  incidents  of  the  earlier  interview,  and 
begin  by  recapitulating  much  of  what  had  then  been  said.  So 
far  as  I  can  discover,  Mrs.  Piper's  waking  memory  is  not  re- 
markable, and  the  whole  constitution  of  her  trance-memory  ia 
something  which  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand." 

Which  naturally  harks  back  to  the  theory  that  she,  or 
"he,"  draws  on  a  stock  that  fills  the  universe.  And  how 
does  that  theory  stand  comparison  with  the  theory  that  several 
controls  independent  of  Phinuit  (and  later  Imperator  and  his 
gang)  speaking  to  each  of  "  many  hundreds  of  sitters  "  and 
keeping  them  all  distinct,  are  all  of  them  secondary,  or 
alternating,  personalities  of  Mrs.  Piper? 

James  says  (p.  656f.)  of  the  E.  control: 

"  I  confess  that  the  human  being  in  me  was  so  much  stronger 
than  the  man  of  science  that  I  was  too  disgusted  with  Phinuit's 
tiresome  twaddle  even  to  note  it  down.  When  later  the  phe- 
nomenon developed  into  pretended  direct  speech  from  E.  [Gur- 
ney.  H.H.]  himself  I  regretted  this,  for  a  complete  record  would 
have  been  useful.  I  can  now  merely  say  that  neither  then,  nor 
at  any  other  time,  was  there  to  my  mind  the  slightest  inner 
verisimilitude  in  the  personation.  [Later,  regarding  the  Hodg- 
son control,  his  opinion  was  very  different.  See  Chapters  XLIII 
and  XLIV.  H.H.]  But  the  failure  to  produce  a  more  plausible 
E.  speaks  directly  in  favor  of  the  non-participation  of  the 
medium's  conscious  mind  in  the  performance.  She  could  so 
easily  have  coached  herself  to  be  more  effective. 

"  Her  trance-talk  about  my  own  family  shows  the  same  inno- 
cence  Few  things  could  have  been  easier,  in  Boston,  than  for 

Mrs.  Piper  to  collect  facts  about  my  own  father's  family  for  use 
in  my  sittings  with  her.  But  although  my  father,  my  mother, 
and  a  deceased  brother  were  repeatedly  announced  as  present, 
nothing  but  their  bare  names  ever  came  out,  except  a  hearty 
message  of  thanks  from  my  father  that  I  had  '  published  the 
book.'  I  had  published  his  Literary  Remains;  but  when  Phinuit 
was  asked  '  what  book  ? '  all  he  could  do  was  to  spell  the  letters 
L,  I,  and  say  no  more 

"  The  aunt  who  purported  to  '  take  control '  directly  was  a 
much  better  personation  [than  Phinuit.  H.H.],  having  a  good 
deal  of  the  cheery  strenuousness  of  speech  of  the  original.  She 
spoke,  by  the  way,  on  this  occasion,  of  the  condition  of  health  of 
two  members  of  the  family  in  New  York,  of  which  we  knew 
nothing  at  the  time,  and  which  was  afterwards  corroborated  by 
letter.  We  have  repeatedly  heard  from  Mrs.  Piper  in  trance 


458    Mrs.  Piper's  English  Sittings,  1889-90    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

things  of  which  we  were  not  at  the  moment  aware.  If  the  super- 
normal element  in  the  phenomenon  be  thought-transference  it  is 
certainly  not  that  of  the  sitter's  conscious  thought.  It  is  rather 
the  reservoir  of  his  potential  knowledge  which  is  tapped;  and 
not  always  that,  but  the  knowledge  of  some  distant  living  person, 
as  in  the  incident  last  quoted.  It  has  sometimes  even  seemed  to 
me  that  too  much  intentness  on  the  sitter's  part  to  have  Phinuit 
say  a  certain  thing  acts  as  a  hindrance.  [Again  the  reverse  of 

Foster.  H.H.] 

"  My  mother-in-law,  on  her  return  from  Europe,  spent  a  morn- 
ing vainly  seeking  for  her  bank-book.  Mrs.  Piper,  on  being 
shortly  afterwards  asked  where  this  book  was,  described  the  place 
so  exactly  that  it  was  instantly  found.  I  was  told  by  her  that  the 
spirit  of  a  boy  named  Robert  F.  was  the  companion  of  my  lost 
infant.  The  F.'s  were  cousins  of  my  wife  living  in  a  distant 
city.  On  my  return  home  I  mentioned  the  incident  to  my  wife, 
saying,  '  Your  cousin  did  lose  a  baby,  didn't  she  ?  but  Mrs.  Piper 
was  wrong  about  its  sex,  name,  and  age.'  I  then  learned  that 
Mrs.  Piper  had  been  quite  right  in  all  those  particulars,  and  that 
mine  was  the  wrong  impression.  But,  obviously,  for  the  source 
of  revelations  such  as  these,  one  need  not  go  behind  the  sitter's 
own  storehouse  of  forgotten  or  unnoticed  experiences  [or  the 
world-soul's?  H.H.].  Miss  X.'s  experiments  in  crystal-gazing 
prove  how  strangely  these  survive.  If  thought-transference  be 
the  clue  to  be  followed  in  interpreting  Mrs.  Piper's  trance-utter- 
ances (and  that,  as  far  as  my  experience  goes,  is  what,  far  more 
than  any  supramundane  instillations,  the  phenomena  seem  on 
their  face  to  be)  we  must  admit  that  the  '  transference '  need  not 
be  of  the  conscious  or  even  the  unconscious  thought  of  the  sitter, 
but  must  often  be  of  the  thought  of  some  person  far  away." 

Hodgson's  report  of  the  sittings  in  America  from  Mrs. 
Piper's  return  in  1890  to  the  end  of  '91  (Pr.  VIII,  133f.) 
contains  much  of  an  "evidential"  nature,  including  some 
remarkable  telopses.  But  so  abundant  are  such  cases  that  it 
hardly  seems  worth  while  to  string  them  along.  They  prove 
nothing  more  than  telepathy,  unless  they  contain  dramatic 
elements;  and  the  present  state  of  the  skeptical  argument  is 
such  that  even  each  dramatic  case  tends  to  add  a  recruit  to 
Mrs.  Piper's  regiments  of  alternate  selves.  Credat  Ju- 
dceus! 

In  May,  1892,  Hodgson  closed  as  follows  (Pr.  VIII,  58) 
his  comments  on  the  sittings  reported: 

"  The  foregoing  report  is  based  upon  sittings  not  later  than 
1891.  Mrs.  Piper  has  given  some  sittings  very  recently  which 


Ch.  XXX]    Hodgson's  Promised  Developments  459 

materially  strengthen  the  evidence  for  the  existence  of  some 
faculty  that  goes  beyond  thought-transference  from  the  sitters, 
and  which  certainly  prima  facie  appear  to  render  some  form  of 
the  '  spiritistic '  hypothesis  more  plausible.  I  hope  to  discuss 
these  among  other  results  in  a  later  article." 

We  shall  meet  this  discussion  in  time. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 
HODGSON'S   SECOND   PIPER   REPORT,  1892-5 

I.  The  G.  P.  Sittings 

SOME  six  years  later  than  the  reports  drawn  from  in 
the  preceding  chapter,  Hodgson,  in  Pr.  XIII,  published 
another  report  on  Mrs.  Piper's  trance,  taken  from  some 
five  hundred  sittings.  During  the  five  years  had  been  de- 
veloped heteromatic  writing  and  the  control  known  as  G.  P., 
and  Mrs.  Piper  had  undergone  two  important  surgical  opera- 
tions, which  had  entirely  remedied  a  somewhat  defective 
state  of  health,  with  great  benefit  to  the  manifestations. 
Through  the  heteromatic  writing,  not  only  were  the  records 
better  kept,  but  there  were  many  more  manifestations  of 
knowledge  of  facts  unknown  to  the  sitter  and  afterwards 
verified,  and  much  more  indication  of  the  characteristics  of 
various  persons  than  had  been  practicable  through  Phinuit's 
talk. 

My  abstract  can  give  but  a  very  inadequate  idea  of  this 
matter.  The  interested  reader  should  get  Pr.  Part  XXXIII 
of  Vol.  XIII. 

Touching  the  writing,  Hodgson  says  (Pr.  XIII,  291f.)  : 

"  The  first  case  of  this  automatic  writing  which  I  witnessed 
myself  occurred  on  March  12th,  1892.  The  sitter,  a  lady,  had 
taken  several  articles  as  test  objects,  among  them  a  ring  which 
had  belonged  to  Annie  D . 

"Phinuit  made  [oral.  H.H.]  references  to  this  lady,  giving 
the  name  Annie,  and  just  before  the  close  of  the  sitting  Mrs. 
Piper's  right  hand  moved  slowly  up  until  it  was  over  the  top 
of  her  head.  The  arm  seemed  to  become  rigidly  fixed . . .  but  the 
hand  trembled  very  rapidly.  Phinuit  exclaimed  several  times: 
'  She's  [i.e.,  Annie  D.  ?  H.H.]  taken  my  hand  away,'  and  added : 
'she  wants  to  write.'  I  put  a  pencil  between  the  fingers,  and 
placed  a  block-book  on  the  head  under  the  pencil.  No  writing 
came  until,  obeying  Phinuit's  order  to  '  hold  the  hand,'  I  grasped 
the  band  very  firmly  at  its  junction  with  the  wrist  and  so 
stopped  its  trembling  or  vibrating.  It  then  wrote :  '  I  am  Annie 
460 


Ch.  XXXI]  Early  Piper  Writing  461 

D [surname  correctly  given]  ...  I  am  not  dead ...  I  am  not 

dead  but  living 1  am  not  dead . . .  world . . .  good  bye ...  I  am 

Annie  D .'    The  hold  of  the  pencil  then  relaxed,  and  Phinuit 

began  to  murmur  '  Give  me  my  hand  back,  give  me  my  hand 
back.'  The  arm,  however,  remained  in  its  contracted  position 
for  a  short  time,  but  finally,  as  though  with  much  difficulty, 
and  slowly,  it  moved  down  to  the  side,  and  Phinuit  appeared 
to  regain  control  over  it.  Previous  to  this  I  had  witnessed 
a  little  of  Phinuit's  writing,  but  I  was  not  aware  that  any 
other  '  control '  had  used  the  hand  while  Phinuit  was  mani- 
festing at  the  same  time  [by  the  voice.  H.H.]  . . .  The  char- 
acteristics of  the  actual  handwritings  themselves . . .  vary  super- 
ficially a  great  deal,  according  to  the  excitement,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  purported  '  communicator,'  to  the  frequency  of  his 
writing  in  that  way  previously,  and  probably  to  other  causes 
difficult  to  estimate  except  speculatively.  It  would  seem,  more- 
over, that  until  instructed  in  some  way,  the  quasi-personality 
that  guides  the  writing  is  unaware  that  he  is  writing.  The 
process  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  '  communicator '  rather 
resembles  the  definite  thinking  of  his  thoughts,  with  the  object 
of  conveying  them  to  the  sitter, — and  I  feel  very  sure  that  this 
is  true  whatever  theory  may  be  held  as  to  the  identity  of  the 
'  communicator,'  whether  this  is  what  it  purports  to  be,  or 
merely  another  stratum  of  Mrs.  Piper's  mind  believing  itself  to 
be  an  extraneous  intelligence." 

Hodgson  says  (Pr.  XIII,  292-3) : 

"  When  the  arm  is  being  seized  '  for  the  purpose  of  writing,' 
as  also  to  a  less  extent  when  Phinuit  is  regaining  control,  it 
shows  a  certain  amount  of  spasmodic  movement,  which  occasion- 
ally is  extremely  violent,  knocking  pencils  and  block-books  helter- 
skelter  off  the  table,  and  requiring  considerable  force  to  restrain 
it.  Sometimes,  but  not  often,  the  writing  will  be  interrupted  by 
a  spasm  in  the  arm,  and  the  hand  will  be  strongly  clenched  and 
bent  over  at  the  wrist,  but  after  an  interval  that  can  be  meas- 
ured in  seconds  rather  than  minutes,  the  hand  will  be  released 
and  proceed  with  the  writing." 

Do  the  probabilities  seem  preponderant  that  all  this  is 
genuine,  or  that  it  is  "  put  up  "  ?  Nothing  like  it  is  reported 
in  the  Proceedings,  of  the  other  heteromatic  writers.  All  of 
which  seems  congruous  with  Mrs.  Piper's  apparently  more 
thorough  "  possession  "  in  other  respects.  Hodgson  continues : 

"It  is  not  necessary  for  Phinuit  to  stop  talking  while  the 
hand  is  writing.  On  one  occasion  when  I  was  present  Phinuit 
was  listening  to  the  stenographic  report  of  a  previous  interview, 
commenting  upon  it,  making  additions  to  his  statements  about 
some  objects,  and  at  the  same  time  the  hand  was  writing  freely 


462  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pi  IV 

and  rapidly  on  other  subjects,  and  holding  conversation  with 
another  person,  the  hand  purporting  to  be  'controlled'  by  a 
deceased  friend  of  that  person.  [Perhaps  this  is  put  up,  too? 
Is  it  within  the  compass  of  mortal  faculty?  Is  it  two  controls 
at  the  same  time?  The  brain  consists  of  two  halves.  H.H.] 
This  lasted  for  over  twenty  minutes.  On  another  occasion,  when 
I  was  not  present,  I  was  informed  that  Phinuit  for  about  an 
hour  kept  up  a  specially  rapid  and  vigorous  talk,  more  voluble 
even  than  usual  with  him,  with  two  or  three  young  girls  who 
were  present  at  the  sitting,  and  during  the  whole  of  this  time 
the  hand  was  writing  on  other  matters  with  another  person. 
The  only  one  that  appeared  to  be  distracted  was  the  sitter  who 
was  talking  with  the  '  hand,'  who  was  remonstrated  with  by  the 
'  hand '  for  not  paying  sufficient  attention  to  it.  I  have . . . 
never  failed  to  get  this  double  action  when  desired  if  Phinuit 
was  present  and  the  hand  was  being  used  by  another  '  control.' 
In  all  cases  when  the  '  hand '  is  writing  independently  of  Phi- 
nuit, the  sense  of  hearing  for  the  '  hand-control '  appears  to  be 
in  the  hand,  whereas  Phinuit  apparently  always  hears  through 
the  ordinary  channel.  This  apparent  heteraesthesia  will  be  con- 
sidered in  Part  II.  of  my  Eeport." 

Also  during  the  five  years  since  Hodgson's  first  report,  to 
the  two  accounts  of  professed  control  by  personal  friends  of 
sitters  there  given,  he  was  able  to  add  many,  especially  from 
George  "  Pelham,"  and  he  stated  that  they  had  inspired  the 
following  significant  remark,  which  I  think  worth  repeating, 
as  he  did.  It  closed  his  previous  report  in  Pr.  VIII,  and  is 
reprinted  in  the  volume  we  are  now  considering  (Pr.  XIII, 
290): 

"  Mrs.  Piper  has  given  some  sittings  very  recently  which 
materially  strengthen  the  evidence  for  the  existence  of  some 
faculty  that  goes  beyond  thought-transference  from  the  sitters, 
and  which  certainly  prima  facie  appear  to  render  some  form  of 
the  '  spiritistic '  hypothesis  more  plausible." 

To  this  he  added  in  the  new  report  (Pr.  XIII,  291) : 

"The  results  present  an  appearance  precisely  in  accordance 
with  what  we  should  expect  from  returning  '  spirits '  communi- 
cating under  the  conditions  involved,  and . . .  such  results  do  not 
fall  into  orderly  relation  with  one  another  on  the  hypothesis  of 
telepathy  from  the  living." 

To  prove  this  Hodgson  presented  a  masterly  examination 
of  the  evidence ;  and,  in  short,  it  was  this  series  of  phenomena 
that  turned  Hodgson,  the  arch  skeptic  and  arch  unveiler  of 


Ch.  XXXI]  George  " '  Pelliam"  463 

frauds,  into  a  spiritist.  Of  this  report,  so  high  an  authority 
as  James  later  said  (Pr.  XXIII,  28) : 

"I  admire  [it]  greatly ...  especially  in  sections  5  and  6, 
where,  taking  the  whole  mass  of  communication  into  careful 
account,  he  decides  for  this  spiritist  interpretation.  I  know  of 
no  more  masterly  handling  anywhere  of  so  unwieldly  a  mass  of 
material." 

Here,  too,  should  my  scrappy  extracts  interest  any  reader, 
I  advise  "thon"  to  get  the  full  report  in  Pr.  Part  (not 
Volume)  XXXIII. 

George  "  Pelham  "  is  the  principal  control  in  this  series. 
He  was  of  a  leading  New  York  family,  graduated  from  Har- 
vard, and  for  some  years  after  graduation  lived  in  or  near 
Boston ;  but  for  three  years  before  his  death,  had  made  his 

headquarters  in  New  York  and  the  family  seat  at  , 

at  both  of  which  places,  and  elsewhere,  I  had  seen  much  of 
him.  He  had  been  trained  in  the  law,  but  I  think  had  not 
practised,  but  had  been  a  rather  assiduous  reader  in  literature 
and  philosophy.  He  had  published  a  meritorious  biography 
of  an  eminent  ancestor,  and  another  volume  of  "pure  lit- 
erature." 

Perhaps  I  may  as  well  digress  here  to  add  my  own  to  the 
general  testimony  that  the  Piper  controls  calling  themselves 
George  "  Pelham  "  and  (much  later  in  this  record)  Hodgson 
and  Myers  are  fac-similes  of  the  men  as  I  knew  them ;  and  to 
give  my  testimony  whatever  weight  it  may  be  entitled  to,  I 
venture  to  explain  also  how  I  knew  the  last  two.  Hodgson 
I  knew  even  better  than  "  Pelham,"  in  his  frequent  visits  to 
New  York,  and  mine  to  Boston ;  and  especially  for  a  fortnight 
or  so  while  we  were  both  attending  the  Chicago  Fair  in  '93, 
when  we  met  virtually  every  day,  and  frequently  several  times 
a  day.  We  also  were  together  for  a  week  or  so  on  a  visit  to 
Old  Farm.  (See  Chapter  XLIV.)  Myers  was  there  at  the 
same  time,  and  so  was  James,  the  house-party  probably  having 
been  selected  somewhat  with  reference  to  the  common  interests 
of  its  members  in  Psychical  Research.  Under  such  circum- 
stances I  came  to  know  Myers  better  than  probably  would 
have  been  the  case  in  years  of  ordinary  meetings. 

Yet  candor  obliges  me  to  say  that  since  I  wrote  the  fore- 


464  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

going  passage,  a  lady  who  thinks  she  knew  G.  P.  better 
than  anybody  else  did  tells  me  that  his  alleged  postcarnate 
self  is  not  like  him  at  all.  Does  this  illustrate  anything 
more  than  the  different  aspects  a  person  presents  to  different 
people  ? 
Hodgson  says  (Pr.  XIII,  295)  : 

"  G.  P.  met  his  death  accidentally,  and  probably  instantane- 
ously by  a  fall  in  New  York  in  February,  1892,  at  the  age  of 

thirty-two He  was  an  Associate  of  our  Society,  his  interest 

in  which  was  explicable  rather  by  an  intellectual  openness  and 
fearlessness  characteristic  of  him  than  by  any  tendency  to  be- 
lieve in  supernormal  phenomena We  had  several  long  talks 

together  on  philosophic  subjects,  and  one  very  long  discussion, 
probably  at  least  two  years  before  his  death,  on  the  possibility 
of  a  'future  life.'  In  this  he  maintained  that  in  accordance 
with  a  fundamental  philosophic  theory  which  we  both  accepted, 
a  '  future  life '  was  not  only  incredible,  but  inconceivable ;  and  I 
maintained  that  it  was  at  least  conceivable.  At  the  conclusion 
of  the  discussion  he  admitted  that  a  future  life  was  conceivable, 
but  he  did  not  accept  its  credibility,  and  vowed  that  if  he  should 
die  before  I  did,  and  found  himself  '  still  existing,'  he  would 
'  make  things  lively '  in  the  effort  to  reveal  the  fact  of  his  con- 
tinued existence." 

That  his  "  spirit,"  or  at  the  very  least,  recollections  of  him 
which  must  have  been  in  other  minds  than  Hodgson's  or  Mrs. 
Piper's,  and  which  were  telepathically  obtained  and  dramat- 
ically combined  by  Mrs.  Piper,  should  have  at  length  con- 
verted Hodgson  to  the  spiritistic  belief,  is  a  strange  outcome. 

As  a  "  control "  G.  P.  differs  in  some  particulars  from  his 
earthly  self  as  known  to  me.  He  greeted  me  through  Mrs. 
Piper  with  a  degree  of  jollity  and  bonhomie  that  I  had  never 
seen  in  him  on  earth.  The  genial  helpful  creature  "going 
about  doing  good  "  in  aid  of  everybody's  communication,  that 
appears  as  his  manifestations  from  another  world  (  ?),  he  may 
have  been  at  heart  in  this  one ;  but  if  he  was,  it  was  under 
a  mask  of  shyness  or  reserve  developed  on  a  sensitive  nature 
by  contact  with  a  rough  world.  Yet  he  had  an  unusual  degree 
of  candor,  not  to  say  self-assertion,  which,  though  never 
boisterous,  was  apt,  at  times,  to  become  somewhat  dogmatic. 
I  never  thought  of  him  as  a  happy  man  here,  while  utterances 
attributed  to  him  give  a  welcome  impression  that  he  is  a  happy 
man  there.  This  impression  I  think  must  have  had  more 


Ch.  XXXI]          0.  P.'s  First  Appearance  465 

effect  on  Hodgson's  opinions  regarding  G.  P.'s  postcarnate 
existence  than  Hodgson  has  stated,  or  perhaps  realized.  I 
think  any  friend  of  G.  P.'s  must  be  somewhat  affected  by  it, 
even  if  unconsciously.  This  I  find  more  the  case  regarding 
him  than  I  later  found  regarding  the  controls  representing 
Hodgson  and  Myers :  for  they  were  happier  men  here. 

Hodgson  goes  on  to  say  of  G.  P.  (Pr.  XIII,  295-6) : 

"  On  March  7th,  1888,  he  had  a  sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper. . . . 
I  may  add  my  own  opinion  that  Mrs.  Piper  never  knew  until 
recently  that  she  had  ever  seen  G.  P 

"  G.  P.'s  conclusion  was,  briefly,  that  the  results  of  this  sitting 
did  not  establish  any  more  than  hypenesthesia  on  the"  part  of 
the  medium. 

"  I  knew  of  G.  P.'s  death  within  a  day  or  two  of  its  occurrence, 
and  was  present  at  several  sittings  with  Mrs.  Piper  in  the 
course  of  the  following  few  weeks,  but  no  allusion  was  made  to 
G.  P.  On  March  22nd,  1892,  between  four  and  five  weeks  after 
G.  P.'s  death,  I  accompanied  Mr.  John  Hart  [not  the  real 
name],  who  had  been  an  old  intimate  friend  of  his,  to  a  sitting." 

That  he  did  not  appear  till  a  month  after  his  death  is  in 
accord  with  the  many  indications  and  assertions  that  it  takes 
time  for  the  newly  emancipated  soul  to  "  find  itself  "  from  a 
dazed  condition  after  death.  If  telepathy  were  all,  Hodgson's 
mind  was  probably  fuller  of  G.  P.  at  the  first  sitting  after  his 
death  than  a  month  later.  It  often  seems  too  as  if  the  presence 
of  a  close  friend  were  necessary  to  help  the  control's  early 
utterance.  This  one  did  not  speak  at  Hodgson's  many  sittings, 
until  the  first  sitting  when  his  closer  friend  Hart  was  present. 

After  Phinuit  had  announced  a  "  George,"  an  uncle  of  Mr. 
Hart,  he  went  on  (Pr.  XIII,  297f.)  : 

"  There  is  another  George  who  wants  to  speak  to  you.  How 
many  Georges  are  there  about  you  any  way? 

"  [R.  H.]  The  rest  of  the  sitting,  until  almost  the  close,  was 
occupied  by  statements  from  G.  P.,  Phinuit  acting  as  inter- 
mediary. George  Pelham's  real  name  was  given  in  full,  also 
the  names,  both  Christian  and  surname,  of  several  of  his  most 
intimate  friends,  including  the  name  of  the  sitter.  Moreover, 
incidents  were  referred  to  which  were  unknown  to  the  sitter  or 
myself.  One  of  the  pair  of  studs  which  J.  H.  was  wearing  was 

given  to  Phinuit '(Who  gave  them  to  me?)  [Throughout 

these  sittings,  the  sitters'  remarks  are  in  parentheses.  H.H.] 
That's  mire.  I  gave  you  that  part  of  it.  I  sent  that  to  you. 
(When?)  Before  I  came  here.  That's  mine.  Mother  gave  you 


466  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

that.  (No.)  Well,  father  then,  father  and  mother  together. 
You  got  those  after  I  passed  out.  Mother  took  them.  Gave 
them  to  father,  and  father  gave  them  to  you.  I  want  you  to 
keep  them.  I  will  them  to  you.'  Mr.  Hart  notes :  '  The  studs 
were  sent  to  me  by  Mr.  Pelham  as  a  remembrance  of  his 
son 

"  James  and  Mary  [Mr.  and  Mrs.]  Howard  [Pseudonyms. 
H.H.]  were  mentioned  with  strongly  specific  references,  and  in 
connection  with  Mrs.  Howard  came  the  name  Katharine.  '  Tell 
her,  she'll  know.  I  will  solve  the  problems,  Katharine.'  Mr. 
Hart  notes :  '  This  had  no  special  significance  for  me  at  the 
time,  though  I  was  aware  that  Katharine,  the  daughter  of  Jim 
Howard,  was  known  to  George,  who  used  to  live  with  the  How- 
ards. On  the  day  following  the  sitting  I  gave  Mr.  Howard  a 
detailed  account  of  the  sitting.  These  words,  "  I  will  solve  the 
problems,  Katharine,"  impressed  him  more  than  anything  else, 
and  at  the  close  of  my  account  he  related  that  George,  when  he 
had  last  stayed  with  them,  had  talked  frequently  with  Katharine 
(a  girl  of  fifteen  years  of  age)  upon  such  subjects  as  Time, 
Space,  God,  Eternity,  and  pointed  out  to  her  how  unsatisfactory 
the  commonly  accepted  solutions  were.  He  added  that  some 
time  he  would  solve  the  problems,  and  let  her  know,  using  almost 
the  very  words  of  the  communication  made  at  the  sitting.'  Mr. 
Hart  added  that  he  was  entirely  unaware  of  these  circumstances. 
I  was  myself  unaware  of  them,  and  was  not  at  that  time  ac- 
quainted with  the  Howards 

"  G.  P. :  '  John,  if  that  is  you,  speak  to  me.  Tell  Jim  I  want 
to  see  him.  He  will  hardly  believe  me,  believe  that  I  am  here. 
I  want  him  to  know  where  I  am . . .  O  good  fellow.  All  got 
dark,  then  it  grew  light 

" '  Go  up  to  my  room.  (Which  room  ?)  Up  to  my  room, 
where  I  write.  I'll  come.  Speak  to  me,  John.  (What  room?) 
Study.  (You  said  something  about  a  desk  just  now.)  I  left 
things  all  mixed  up.  [Remember :  his  death  was  sudden.  H.H.] 
I  wish  you'ld  go  up  and  straighten  them  out  for  me.  Lot  of 
names.  Lot  of  letters.  I  left  things  mixed  up.  You  answer 
them  for  me.  Wish  I  could  remember  more,  but  I'm  con- 
fused  

"'Who's  Rogets?  [Phinuit  tries  to  spell  the  real  name.]% 
(Spell  that  again.)  [At  the  first  attempt  afterwards  Phinuit 

leaves  out  a  letter,  then  spells  it  correctly.]    Rogers Rogers 

has  got  a  book  of  mine.    (What  is  he  going  to  do  with  it?)  ' 

"  Both  Hart  and  G.  P.  knew  Rogers,  who  at  that  time  had  a 
certain  MS.  book  of  G.  P.  in  his  possession.  The  book  was 
found  after  G.  P.'s  death  and  given  to  Rogers  to  be  edited.  G. 
P.  had  promised  during  his  lifetime  that  a  particular  disposition 
should  be  made  of  this  book  after  his  death.  This  action . . . 
was  here,  and  in  subsequent  utterances  which  from  their  private 
nature  I  cannot  quote,  enjoined  emphatically  and  repeatedly, 


Ch.  XXXI]    G.  P.  Sends  for  Relatives  and  Friends       467 

and  had  it  been  at  once  carried  out,  as  desired  by  G.  P.,  much 
subsequent  unhappiness  and  confusion  might  have  been  avoided. 

"  During  the  latter  part  of  the  sitting,  and  without  any  re- 
levance to  the  remarks  immediately  before  and  after,  which  were 
quite  clear  as  expressions  from  G.  P.  came  the  words,  '  Who's 
James?  Will— William.'  [It  must  be  remembered  that  Phinuit 
was  talking  throughout.]  This  was  apparently  explained  by 
Phinuit's  further  remarks  at  the  close  of  the  sitting. 

"  Phinuit:  '  Who's  Alice?  (What  do  you  want  me  to  say  to 
her?)  [To  R.  H.]  Alice  in  spirit.  Alice  in  spirit  says  it's  all 
over  now,  and  tell  Alice  in  the  body  all  is  well.  Tell  Will  I'll 
explain  things  later  on.  He  [George]  calls  Alice,  too,  in  the 

body.  I  want  her  to  know  me,  too,  Alice  and  Katharine 

Speak  to  him.  He  won't  go  till  you  say  good-by.  [The  hand 
then  wrote :  George  Pelham.  Good  day  ( ?)  John.] ' 

"  [Alice  James,  the  sister  of  Professor  William  James,  had 
recently  died  in  England.  The  first  name  of  Mrs.  James  is  also 
Alice.  Alice,  the  sister  of  Katharine,  is  the  youngest  daughter 
of  Mr.  Howard  and  was  very  fond  of  G.  P.] 

"  As  1  have  already  said,  the  most  personal  references  made 
at  the  sitting  cannot  be  quoted ;  they  were  regarded  by  J.  H.  as 
profoundly  characteristic  of  Pelham,  and  in  minor  matters, 
where  my  notes  were  specially  inadequate,  such  as  in  the  words 
of  greeting  and  occasional  remarks  to  the  sitter,  the  manner  of 
reference  to  his  mother  with  him  '  spiritually,'  and  to  his  father 
and  [step]  mother  living,  etc.,  the  sitter  was  strongly  im- 
pressed with  the  vraisemblance  of  the  personality  of  Pelham." 

Mrs.  Piper's  time  was  so  engaged  that  it  was  nearly  three 
weeks  before  these  astounding  developments  could  be  followed 
up  by  G.  P.'s  intimate  friends  the  Howards,  for  whom,  during 
the  interval  George  (as,  for  at  least  convenience'  sake,  we 
will  provisionally  admit  the  control  to  be)  asked  through 
Phinuit  at  nearly  every  sitting  when  his  friends,  especially 
Jim  (Howard)  were  to  be  brought.  On  April  11,  1892,  they 
came.  Hodgson  says  (Pr.  XIII,  300f.)  : 

"  I  made  the  appointment,  of  course  without  giving  names . . . 
during  nearly  the  whole  of  the  time  of  trance  apparently  G.  P. 
controlled  the  voice  directly.  The  statements  made  were  inti- 
mately personal  and  characteristic The  Howards,  who  were 

not  predisposed  to  take  any  interest  in  psychical  research,  but 
who  had  been  induced  by  the  account  of  Mr.  Hart  to  have  a 
sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper,  were  profoundly  impressed  with  the 
feeling  that  they  were  in  truth  holding  a  conversation  with  the 
personality  of  the  friend  whom  they  had  known  so  many  years. 
. . .  All  the  references  to  persons  and  individuals  are  correct. 

"  G.  P. :  '  Jim,  is  that  you  ?    Speak  to  me  quick.    I  am  not 


468  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

dead.  Don't  think  me  dead.  I'm  awfully  glad  to  see  you. 
Can't  you  see  me?  Don't  you  hear  me?  Give  my  lore  to  my 
father  and  tell  him  I  want  to  see  him.  I  am  happy  here,  and 
more  so  since  I  find  I  can  communicate  with  you.  I  pity  those 
people  who  can't  speak 

"  (What  do  you  do,  George,  where  you  are?) 

" '  I  am  scarcely  able  to  do  anything  yet;  I  am  just  awakened 
to  the  reality  of  life  after  death.  It  was  like  darkness,  I  could 
not  distinguish  anything  at  first.  Darkest  hours  just  before 
dawn,  you  know  that,  Jim.  I  was  puzzled,  confused.  Shall 
have  an  occupation  soon.  Now  I  can  see  you,  my  friends.  I 
can  hear  you  speak.  Your  voice,  Jim,  I  can  distinguish  with 
your  accent  and  articulation,  but  it  sounds  like  a  big  bass  drum. 
Mine  would  sound  to  you  like  the  faintest  whisper.  (Our  con- 
versation then  is  something  like  telephoning  ?)  [Remember :  the 
sitter's  part  is  given  in  parentheses  throughout.  H.H.]  Yes. 
(By  long  distance  telephone.)  [G.  P.  laughs.]  (Were  you  not 
surprised  to  find  yourself  living?)  Perfectly  so.  Greatly  sur- 
prised. I  did  not  believe  in  a  future  life.  It  was  beyond  my 
reasoning  powers.  Now  it  is  as  clear  to  me  as  daylight.  We 
have  an  astral  fac-simile  of  the  material  body.  [G.  P.  when 
living  would  probably  have  jeered  at  the  associations  of  the 
word  *  astral/ — E.H.]  . . .  Jim,  what  are  you  writing  now?  (No- 
thing of  any  importance.)  Why  don't  you  write  about  this?  (I 
should  like  to,  but  the  expression  of  my  opinions  would  be  no- 
thing. I  must  have  facts.)  These  I  will  give  to  you  and  to  Hodg- 
son if  he  is  still  interested  in  these  things.  [Cuts  both  ways, 
as  the  living  G.  P.  knew  that  "  these  things  "  made  Hodgson's 
sole  occupation.  H.H.]  (Will  people  know  about  this  possibility 
of  communication  ?)  They  are  sure  to  in  the  end.  It  is  only  a 
question  of  time  when  people  in  the  material  body  will  know  all 
about  it,  and  everyone  will  be  able  to  communicate. ...  I  want 

all  the  fellows  to  know  about  me What  is  Rogers  writing  ? 

(A  novel.)  No,  not  that.  Is  he  not  writing  something  about 
me?  (Yes,  he  is  preparing  a  memorial  of  you.)  That  is  nice; 
it  is  pleasant  to  be  remembered.  It  is  very  kind  of  him.  He 
was  always  kind  to  me  when  I  was  alive.  Martha  Rogers  [de- 
ceased daughter]  is  here.  I  have  talked  with  her  several  times. 
She  reflects  too  much  on  her  last  illness,  on  being  fed  with  a 
tube.  We  tell  her  she  ought  to  forget  it,  and  she  has  done  so 
in  good  measure,  but  she  was  ill  a  long  time.  She  is  a  dear 
little  creature  when  you  know  her,  but  she  is  hard  to  know.  She 
is  a  beautiful  little  soul.  She  sends  her  love  to  her  father. . . . 
Berwick,  how  is  he?  Give  him  my  love.  He  is  a  good  fellow; 
he  is  what  I  always  thought  him  in  life,  trustworthy  and  honor- 
able. How  is  Orenberg?  He  has  some  of  my  letters.  Give  him 
my  warmest  love.  He  was  always  very  fond  of  me,  though  he 
understood  me  least  of  all  my  friends.  We  fellows  who  are 
eccentric  are  always  misunderstood  in  life.  I  used  to  have  fits 


Ch.  XXXI]         0.  P.  Arranges  for  a  Test  469 

of  depression.  I  have  none  now.  I  am  happy  now.  I  want  my 
father  to  know  about  this.  We  used  to  talk  about  spiritual 
things,  but  he  will  be  hard  to  convince.  My  mother  will  be 
easier ' 

"  He  referred  to  a  tin  box  of  German  manufacture  which  he 

said  was  either  in  New  York  or  Z [giving  the  name,  a  very 

peculiar  one,  of  the  locality  of  his  father's  country  residence.] 
He  said  that  it  contained  letters  from  three  persons  whom  he 
specified.  He  wished  the  Howards  to  have  this  box.  They  re- 
plied that  the  letters  were  all  burned. 

"  G.  P. :  '  I  think  not.  I  want  you  to  have  them.  I  want  you 
to  tell  my  father  about  this.  (Can't  you  give  us  something  that 
will  convince  him?  something  we  don't  know  and  he  does?)  I 
understand,  a  test.  You  can  tell  him  about  this  tin  box  that  I 
left  in  my  room.  I  know  they  have  taken  the  chest,  but  this  tin 

box  they  have  not.'  [The  box  was  found  at  Z ,  but  there  were 

no  letters  in  it. ...  This  was  explained  to  G.  P.  at  a  sitting  on 
May  14th,  1892,  by  Mrs.  Pelham.  Phinuit:  'That's  the  one  I 
had  reference  to.  He  says  he  put  some  letters  in  before  going 
across  the  water,  but  he  doesn't  remember  taking  them  out.'] 

"  At  the  sitting  of  April  13th,  G.  P.  had  direct  control  of  the 
voice  for  about  twenty  minutes  only.  Then  Phinuit  acted  as 
intermediary,  and  there  was  also  a  little  writing,  a  few  lines  by 
G.  P.,  in  the  form  of  an  affectionate  letter  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Howard.  Apparently  G.  P.  was  more  confident  of  giving  his 
own  exact  words  by  the  direct  writing  process  than  by  the 
method  of  getting  Phinuit  to  repeat  them. 

"  Mr.  Howard  was  absent  during  part  of  the  sitting The 

following  is  from  Mr.  Howard's  notes  on  his  return  to  the 
sitting:— 

"  G.  P. :  '  I  answered  part  of  that  question  [the  part  he  an- 
swered was  correct],  but  did  not  give  the  names  of  the  other 
two  people  because  it  would  be  no  test,  because  I  told  her  [Mrs. 
Howard]  the  names  of  the  other  two  in  life,  and  as  she  knows 
them,  if  I  was  to  give  the  names  in  her  presence,  they  would  say 
it  was  thought-transference.  No,  I  shall  reserve  the  two  names 
to  tell  Hodgson  some  time  when  he  is  alone  with  me,  because  he 
does  not  know  them.'  [All  true.]  " 

A  good  deal  of  persistence  and  purpose  and  emotion  in  this 
kind  of  "  telepathy  " !  But  in  the  conservative  search  for  non- 
spiritistic  sources  of  the  phenomena,  a  statement  in  Mrs.  How- 
ard's absence  would  simply  be  attributed  to  teloteropathy 
from  her,  as  if  she  were  present.  It  should  be  noted  that 
during  G.  P.'s  life,  telepathy  from  the  sitter  had  been  re- 
luctantly conceded  as  a  defense  against  the  spiritistic  hypo- 
thesis, but  it  was  not  till  after  his  death  that  teloteropathy 


470  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

from  persona  at  a,  distance  had  been  conceded ;  and  it  was  not 
until  1909 — seven  years  later,  that  James,  one  of  the  most 
steadfast  holders  of  the  conservative  fort,  in  his  report  on 
the  communications  from  Hodgson's  alleged  spirit,  admitted, 
as  among  the  possible  "  sources  other  than  R.  H.'s  surviving 
spirit  for  the  veridical  communications  from  the  Hodgson 
control,"  "  access  to  some  cosmic  reservoir,  where  the  memory 
of  all  mundane  facts  is  stored  and  grouped  around  personal 
centers  of  association." 

James  had  a  subtler  mind  than  mine  or  almost  anybody's. 
Mine  is  not  subtle  enough  to  be  very  seriously  impressed  by 
the  difference  between  "  memory  of  mundane  facts  stored  and 
grouped  around  personal  centers  of  association"  and  a  sur- 
viving personality ;  and"  what  difference  does  impress  me,  is 
pretty  well  filled  up  when,  in  addition  to  "  the  memory  of 
mundane  facts,"  the  "personal  center"  also  has  "grouped 
around "  it,  the  initiative,  response,  repartee  and  emotional 
and  dramatic  elements  that,  as  shown  not  only  by  the  G.  P. 
control,  but,  years  later,  by  the  Hodgson  control,  and  by  hun- 
dreds of  others,  make  a  gallery  of  characters  more  vivid  than 
those  depicted  by  all  the  historians.  I  don't  say,  though,  that 
they  are  more  vivid  than  those  depicted  by  the  dramatists  and 
novelists,  but  I  may  yet  say  it;  nor  do  I  yet  say  that  they  are 
not,  like  those  of  the  dramatists  and  novelists,  fictional  in  a 
sense;  though  even  claiming  them  to  be  historical,  as  in  a 
sense  they  are,  is  not  claiming  them  to  be  surviving.  Many 
historical  characters  have  put  in  that  claim  through  Mrs. 
Piper  and  other  mediums,  and  while  our  greatest  psychologist 
knew  as  much  as  anybody  about  the  claims,  and  seemed  some- 
what on  the  road  to  admitting  them  to  be  from  surviving 
personalities,  he  did  not  live  to  go  farther  than  memories 
"  stored  and  grouped  around  personal  centers  of  association." 

This  thesis  seems  supported  by  Foster's  communications  in 
languages  unknown  by  him,  and  possibly  by  the  French  which 
Phinuit  did  know,  despite  the  assertions  of  Mrs.  Sidgwick, 
Mr.  James,  and  others. 

But  d  bos  the  "  memories  " !  one  is  tempted  to  say ;  credit 
them  all  to  telepathy  if  you  will:  what  are  they  beside  the 
active  and  spontaneous  emotions  and  responses? 


Ch.  XXXI]      G.  P.  Tinged  by  the  Medium  471 

At  the  sitting  last  quoted,  G.  P.  wrote,  in  answer  to  the 
question  below  (Pr.  XIII,  303) : 

"  (Can't  you  tell  us  something  he  or  your  mother  has  done?) 
'  I  saw  her  brush  my  clothes  and  put  them  away.  I  was  by  her 
side  as  she  did  it.  I  saw  her  take  my  sleeve  buttons  from  a 
small  box  and  give  them  to  my  father.  I  saw  him  send  them  to 
John  Hart.  I  saw  her  putting  papers,  etc.,  into  a  tin  box.' 

"  The  incident  of  the  '  studs '  was  mentioned  at  the  sitting  of 
Hart.  G.  P.'s  clothes  were  brushed  and  put  away,  as  Mrs.  Pel- 
ham  wrote,  not  by  herself,  but  by  '  the  man  who  had  valeted 
George.' " 

This  incident  is  used  by  Mrs.  Sidgwick  in  Pr.  XV,  31,  in 
support  of  the  thesis  that  a  medium's  communications  are 
influenced  by  education  and  social  habits.  I  am  disposed 
entirely  to  endorse  this.  The  communications  seem  to  me  to 
come  from  a  blending  of  the  control,  the  medium,  and  the 
sitter.  Perhaps  this  utterance  will  seem  less  Delphic  as  we 
go  on. 

Hodgson  says  that  ten  days  after  (Pr.  XIII,  304) : 

"  Mr.  Pelham  wrote  to  Mrs.  Howard  on  April  24th,  1892  :— 
'. . .  The  letters  which  you  have  written  to  my  wife  giving  such 
extraordinary  evidence  of  the  intelligence  exercised  by  George  in 
some  incomprehensible  manner  over  the  actions  of  his  friends 
on  earth  have  given  food  for  constant  reflection  and  wonder. 
Preconceived  notions  about  the  future  state  have  received  a 
severe  shock.'" 

On  May  16th  the  following  occurred  (Pr.  XIII,  314).  Is 
this  play  of  conversation  covered  by  telepathy  or  even  by 
memories  "  stored,"  etc.  ? 

"  [Phinuit  speaks  on  behalf  of  G.  P.]  '  Ask  Hodgson  whether 
this  is  important  to  him  or  not.  I  am  determined  to  [writing 
again]  transfer  to  you  my  thoughts,  although  it  will  have  to  be 
done  in  this  uncanny  way.  (Never  mind.  That's  all  right.  We 
understand,  etc.)  Good.  I  will  move  heaven  and  earfh  to  ex- 
plain these  matters  to  you,  Hodgson.  [Phinuit  speaks.]  [For 
G.  P.?H.H.]  You  see  I  am  not  asleep.  [Written.]  I  am  wide 
awake,  and  I  assure  you  I  am  ever  ready  to  help  you  and  give 
you  things  of  importance  in  this  work.  [Phinuit  speaks.]  It 
was  like  Greek  to  him  before  he  came  here.  I  could  not  believe 
this  existence.  [Written.]  I  am  delighted  to  have  this  oppor- 
tunity of  coming  here  to  this  life,  so  as  to  be  able  to  prove  my 
experiences  and  existence  here.  Dear  old  Hodgson,  I  wish  I 
could  have  known  you  better  in  your  life,  but  I  understand  you 
now,  and  the  philosophy  of  my  being  taken  out  and  (Didn't  you 


472-  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

go  too  soon?)  Not  too  soon,  but  it  is  my  vocation  to  be  able 
to  explain  these  things  to  you  and  the  rest  of  my  friends.  [This 
he  (?)  carried  out  for  years.  H.H.]  (Does  it  do  you  harm  ?) 
And  it  is  all  nonsense  about  its  doing  me  harm,  for  it  surely 
does  no  harm,  and  will  help  to  enlighten  the  world.  What  think 
you,  Hodgson?  (I  agree  entirely.  I  think  it's  the  most  im- 
portant work  in  the  world.)  Oh,  I  am  so  glad  your  exalted 
brains  are  not  too  pretentious  to  accept  the  real  truth  and  philo- 
sophy of  my  coming  and  explaining  to  you  these  important 
things.  (Now,  George,  we  mustn't  keep  the  medium  in  trance 
too  long.)  Do  not  worry  about  her,  she  is  having  a  good  time, 
and  I  will  do  no  harm.  You  know  that  too  well.  [Phinuit 
speaks.]  He  says  he's  not  an  idiot.  (Oh,  I  know  he's  not  an 
idiot,  etc.) 

"  [Written.]  '  I  understand.  You  see  I  hear  you.  Now  I 
will  proceed  with  my  important  conversation.  Your  material 
universe  is  very  exacting,  and  it  requires  great  practice  and  per- 
severance to  do  all  I  want  to  say  to  you.' "  [Cf .  "  this  pro- 
toplasm "  in  my  sitting,  Chapter  XXVIII.  H.H.] 

November  22nd,  1892.     (Pr.XIII,413.) 
"  Present :  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Howard,  R.  H.  and  Reporter. 
"  After  a  short  conversation  with  Phinuit,  G.  P.  wrote : 
" '  Haloo,  Hodgson,  you  know  me.    Haloo,  Jim,  old  fellow,  I 
am  not  dead  yet.    I  still  live  to  see  you.    Do  you  remember  how 
we  used  to  ask  each  other  for  books  of  certain  kinds,  about  cer- 
tain books,  where  they  were,  and  you  always  knew  just  where  to 
find  them.     [This  was  characteristic.     The  sitting  was  held  in 
my  library,  where  George  and  myself  had . . .  frequent  occasion 
to  turn  up  references  in  one  book  or  another.     George,  living, 
had  remarked  several  times  on  my  accurate  knowledge  of  loca- 
tion of  the  books  in  my  shelves. — J]     Halloa,  I  know  now 
where  I  am.    Jim,  you  dear  old  soul,  how  are  you  ? ' " 

November  28th,  1892.     (Pr.XIII,414-5.) 
"Present:  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Howard,  and   (part  of  the  time) 
their  eldest  daughter  Katharine,  R.  H.  and  Reporter. 

" ' Katharine,  how  is  the  violin?  [She  plays  the  vio- 
lin.] ...  To  hear  you  playing  it  is  horrible,  horrible '  Mrs. 

H. :  '  But  don't  you  see  she  likes  her  music  because  it  is  the 
best  she  has.'  G.  P. : '  No,  but  that  is  what  I  used  to  say,  that  it 
is  horrible.'  [George  was  always  more  or  less  annoyed  by  hear- 
ing Katharine  practise  when  she  was  beginning  the  violin  as  a 
little  child.— K]  " 

The  above,  we  are  assured,  is  "telepathy"!  The  follow- 
ing (Pr.  XIII,  416f.)  maybe? 

"  Mrs.  Piper  [on  coming  out  of  the  trance.  H.H.] :  '  There  is 
the  man  with  the  beard'  [whom  she  saw  in  the  trance.  H.H.]. 


Ch.  XXXI]    Mrs.  Piper  in  French  and  Italian  473 

Mrs.  Piper  then  described  what  she  thought  was  a  dream.  'I 
saw  a  bright  light  and  a  face  in  it,  a  gentleman  with  a  beard 
on  his  face,  and  he  had  a  very  high  forehead  and  he  was  writing.' 
R.  H. :  '  Would  you  know  it  again  if  you  saw  it  ? '  Mrs.  Piper : 
1  Oh,  yes.  I  would  know  it,  I  think.'  R.  H. :  '  Well,  try  and 
recall  it.'  [See  note  at  end  of  sitting.] 

"  [Medium  says  she  feels  queer  and  as  if  she  could  turn  right 
round  and  go  into  the  trance  again.  Does  not  know  what  is  the 
matter  with  her.  After  saying  this  she  becomes  entranced  again 
very  quickly  at  9.22,  and  Phinuit  appears,  shouting.] 

"  Ph. :  '  You  know  you  don't  play  that  on  me.  George  Pelham 
is  a  very  clever  fellow,  but  I  am  going  to  tell  you  he  passed  by 
me,  and  do  you  know  what  he  did,  he  let  her  go  without  signal- 
ing to  me  at  all;  he  did  it  by  mistake;  he  told  me  afterwards, 

and  so  I  came  back  to  tell  you [To  Katharine]  Vous  etes 

bonne  fille.  C'est  la  petite  de  madame:  bonne  fille,  bonne  fille, 
grande  belle  fille.'  [I  was  struck  by  Phinuit's  speaking  French 
all  at  once  to  Katharine,  as  she  always  speaks  French  with  her 
sisters,  having  lived  so  long  in  France.  There  was  more  French 
than  was  here  reported,  as  the  stenographer  does  not  know 
French  well,  and  had  to  get  what  we  could  remember  from  us 
afterwards.  Mr.  Howard  and  I  were  much  struck  by  the  thor- 
oughly French  use  of  the  word  belle.  Katharine  is  in  no  sense 
of  the  word  a  beautiful  girl  as  English  people  generally  under- 
stand the  word  belle,  but  she  is  conspicuously  a  tall,  well-devel- 
oped, well-made  girl,  of  the  sort  to  which  belle  in  the  French 
sense  would  be  applied. — K.] " 

How  about  the  frequent  claim  that  Phinuit  knew  no 
French  ? 

"  Mrs.  Piper  is  apparently  about  to  come  out  of  trance  when 
another  control  takes  possession  for  a  few  minutes,  who  is 
thought  by  Mrs.  Howard  to  be  Elisa,  and  who  whispers  some- 
thing in  Italian  to  Mrs.  Howard.  [Mrs.  Piper  knew  no  Italian. 
H.H.]  Again  Mrs.  Piper  is  apparently  about  to  come  out  of 
trance  when  Phinuit  returns  for  a  moment  to  say  au  revoir. 
[What  follows  is  in  substance  the  conversation  between  Elisa 
and  Mrs.  Howard.] 

"  E. : '  Pazienza,  pazienza,  pazienza.'  Mrs.  H. : '  Si  cara  Elisa.' 
E. :  [Tries  to  give  a  message  in  Italian  to  her  sister,  but  Mrs. 
H.  could  only  catch  a  few  words.]  Mrs.  H. :  '  Non  comprendo 
bene.'  E. :  '  Taceo,  pazienza,  pazienza.  Dire  tutto  a  Frederica 
[name  of  sister]  a  rivederla.  Elisa  a  rivederla.'  [Signs  of 
suffering  indicating  the  trouble  that  caused  the  death  of  Madame 
Elisa.]  Mrs.  H.  says  in  Italian  '  Don't  suffer,  Elisa.'  E. :  '  Pa- 
zienza a  rivederla.' 

"  After  Mrs.  Piper  comes  out  of  trance  she  is  shown  a  collec- 
tion of  thirty-two  photographs,  nine  of  them  being  of  men,  from 


474  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

which  she  selects  the  picture  of  the  person  whom  she  saw  when 
coming  out  of  trance  the  first  time.  The  photograph  that  she 
first  picked  out  was  an  excellent  likeness  of  G.  P.  She  after- 
wards picked  out  another  photograph  of  him.  She  stated  that 
she  never  knew  the  gentleman  when  living." 

Within  twenty- four  hours  in  this  experiment,  or  some  other, 
as  reported  elsewhere,  the  dream  recollection  had  faded  away ; 
she  could  not  recognize  the  photograph. 

Now  in  face  of  such  an  occurrence  as  this  (and  it  does  not 
stand  alone),  the  talk  about  subliminal  self,  in  the  usual 
sense,  secondary  personality  and  all  that,  simply  "  won't  do." 
We  can  talk  about  telopsis  here,  if  we  want  to,  but  telopsis  of 
what  ?  Of  that  photograph  ?  Nonsense !  And  as  strange  as 
anything  else  about  it,  is  that  there  is  nothing  strange  about 
it.  In  my  own  dreams  I  see  any  number  of  people  I  never 
saw  before,  just  as  plainly  as  I  see  any  number  on  the  street, 
and  if  photographs  were  handed  me,  as  those  were  to  Mrs. 
Piper,  immediately  on  awaking,  I  could  identify  them.  Had 
I  seen  fit  to  develop  the  mediumship  Phinuit  ascribes  to  me 
(and  Sir  William  Crookes,  by  implication  ascribes  to  all  of 
us),  or  had  you  seen  fit  to  develop  the  mediumship  probably 
latent  in  you  (instead  of  perhaps  killing  it  by  scientific 
skepticism — an  admirable  thing  in  its  place) — had  we  devel- 
oped our  mediumship  so  that  we  were  giving  sittings  and 
having  friends  at  hand  with  pictures  of  the  people  we  saw  in 
our  dreams,  we  might  be  identifying  controls  too.  This  iden- 
tification is  nothing  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  nature,  only 
the  wit  to  see  that  it  is,  has  but  just  come.  If  it  is  a  step 
toward  accepting  the  spiritistic  hypothesis,  what  is  the  harm  ? 
Only  it  is  well  to  remember  that  "  fools  rush  in." 

As  to  the  attempted  solution  that  Mrs.  Piper  sees  G.  P. 
as  he  exists  in  the  memory  of  his  friends,  and  picks  out  the 
photograph  of  the  man  she  sees:  in  the  mind  of  an  average 
friend — mine,  for  instance,  he  doesn't  exist  with  the  defi- 
niteness  of  a  photograph.  If  I  had  tried,  when  I  sat  with 
Mrs.  Piper,  to  describe  him  to  an  artist  to  enable  him  to  draw 
a  portrait,  I  should  have  been  wrong  in  so  many  particulars 
that  the  portrait  would  not  have  been  recognizable.  I  should 
have  given  him  a  square  forehead,  and  a  photograph  I  have 
looked  at  since,  which  I  recognized  as  a  very  good  one,  has 


Ch.  XXXI]    G.  P.'s  Intense  Scene  with  Howard  475 

a  round  forehead,  and  having  seen  that  portrait  within  a 
year,  I  couldn't  say  now  whether  the  nose  is  straight  or 
slightly  aquiline.  I  only  feel  sure  that  it  was  not  pug.  I 
don't  remember,  either,  whether  his  mouth  was  firm  or 
rounded,  or  his  chin  and  jaw  light  or  pronounced. 

Yet  at  the  sitting  when  Mrs.  Piper  saw  him,  the  sitter  may 
have  been  gifted  with  a  much  more  pictorial  memory  than 
mine;  and  with  any  sitter,  Mrs.  Piper  may  have  just  as 
definite  an  idea  as  the  sitter  has,  and  that  may  be,  like  mine, 
definite  enough  to  recognize,  but  not  to  describe.  But  can 
telepathy  convey  more  than  the  agent  can  describe  ?  She  may 
have  seen  the  man  at  all  the  sittings,  as  we  see  in  dreams 
people  that  we  never  knew  or  know  we  knew,  or  it  may  have 
been  the  man  himself  who  used  her  organism  to  speak 
and  write  when  it  was  asserted  that  he  did.  Each  one  of 
us  will  have  to  fumble  to  his  own  conviction  if  he  ever  reaches 
one.  Mine  is  simply  that  she  saw  him  in  dreams,  and  the 
sitters  or  his  surviving  personality  impressed  those  dreams 
upon  her.  One  reason  for  that  conviction  is  that  despite  the 
occasional  alleged  going  out  of  one  control,  and  coming  in 
of  another,  generally  the  controls  succeed  and  interrupt  each 
other  without  any  intervals,  as  in  dreams. 

Hodgson  continues  (Pr.  XIII,  321-2) : 

"  It  was  during  this  sitting  [Dec.  22,  1892]  that  perhaps  the 
most  dramatic  incident  of  the  whol«  series  occurred. 

"  Mr.  Howard :  '  Tell  me  something . . .  that  you  and  I  alone 
know.  I  ask  you  because  several  things  I  have  asked  you,  you 
have  failed  to  get  hold  of.'  G.  P. : '  Why  did  you  not  ask  me  this 
before? '  Mr.  H. :  '  Because  I  did  not  have  occasion  to.'  G.  P. : 
'What  do  you  mean,  Jim?'  Mr.  H. :  'I  mean,  tell  me  some- 
thing that  you  and  I  alone  know,  something  in  our  past  that  you 
and  I  alone  know.'  G.  P. :  '  Do  you  doubt  me,  dear  old  fellow  ? ' 
Mr.  H. :  '  I  simply  want  something — you  have  failed  to  answer 
certain  questions  that  I  have  asked — now  I  want  you  to  give  me 
the  equivalent  of  the  answers  to  those  questions  in  your  own 
terms '  G.  P. :  '  You  used  to  talk  to  me  about ' 

"  The  writing  which  followed  . . .  contains  too  much  of  the 
personal  element  in  G.  P.'s  life  to  be  reproduced  here.  Several 
statements  were  read  by  me,  and  assented  to  by  Mr.  Howard, 
and  then  was  written  '  private '  and  the  hand  gently  pushed  me 
away.  I  retired  to  the  other  side  of  the  room,  and  Mr.  Howard 
took  my  place  close  to  the  hand  where  he  could  read  the  writing. 
He  did  not,  of  course,  read  it  aloud,  and  it  was  too  private  for 


476  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

my  perusal.  The  hand,  as  it  reached  the  end  of  each  sheet,  tore 
it  off  from  the  block-book,  and  thrust  it  wildly  at  Mr.  Howard, 
and  then  continued  writing.  The  circumstances  narrated,  Mr. 
Howard  informed  me,  contained  precisely  the  kind  of  test  for 
which  he  had  asked,  and  he  said  that  he  was  '  perfectly  satisfied, 
perfectly.'  After  this  incident  there  was  some  further  conversa- 
tion with  references  to  the  past  that  seemed  specially  natural  as 
coming  from  G.  P. 

" ' Jim,  I  am  dull  in  this  sphere  about  some  things,  but 

you  will  forgive  me,  won't  you  ? . . .  but  like  as  when  in  the  body 
sometimes  we  can't  always  recall  everything  in  a  moment,  can 
we,  Jim,  dear  old  fellow  ? . . .  God  bless  you,  Jim,  and  many 
thanks.  You  often  gave  me  courage  when  I  used  to  get  de- 
pressed. You  know  how  you  especially  used  to  fire  at  me  some- 
times, but  I  understood  it  all,  did  I  not,  old  f ellow  ? . . .  and  I 
used  to  get  tremendously  down  at  the  heel  sometimes,  but  I  am 
all  right  now,  and,  Jim,  you  can  never  know  how  much  I  love 
you  and  how  much  I  delight  in  coming  back  and  telling  you  all 

this When  I  found  I  actually  lived  again  I  jumped  for  joy, 

and  my  first  thought  was  to  find  you  and  Mary.  And,  thank  the 
Infinite,  here  I  am,  old  fellow,  living  and  well ' 

"  Characteristic  also  of  the  living  G.  P.  was  the  remark  made 
to  me  later,  apparently  with  reference  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  private  statements : 

" '  Thanks,  Hodgson,  for  your  kind  help  and  reserved  manners, 
also  patience  in  this  difficult  matter.' " 

All  this,  I  suppose,  is  mere  telepathy  or  the  subliminal  self 
of  an  average  New  England  housewife! 

Hodgson's  comments  apply  equally  well  to  the  following : 

December  19th,  1892.     (Pr.XIII,433f.) 
"  Present :  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Howard,  E.  H.,  and  Keporter. 

" Mrs.  Howard  gives  a  letter . . .  saying,  '  I  want  you  to 

see  your  father's  letter,  because  there  is  something  in  it  that 
will  please  you.' 

"  G.  P. :  '  This  does  not  sound  as  father  would  talk  when  I 

was  in  the  body He  believes  that  I  exist '  [calls  for  Hodgson, 

complains  of  being  muddled,  and  asks  Hodgson  to  put  his  hand 
'up  there'  (i.e.,  probably  against  the  forehead)], 

— i.e.,  the  medium's  forehead.  This  frequent  claim  by  the 
controls  of  bodily  characteristics  and  functions  (including 
their  giving,  sometimes  in  pantomime,  through  the  medium, 
the  symptoms  of  their  last  illnesses)  is  very  incongruous  with 
their  frequent  claims  of  exemption  from  bodily  infirmities, 
and  is  one  of  the  suggestions  that  after  all  the  medium  "  does 
it  all " ;  and  as  soon  as  one  gets  comfortably  settled  in  this,  to 


Ch.  XXXI]  G.  P.  Philosophizes  477 

many,  uncomfortable  conviction,  along  comes  something  to 
upset  it 
G.  P.  continues  (Pr.  XIII,  433-4) : 

"  '  He  was  pained,  but  he  is  no  longer  pained,  because  he 
feels  that  I  exist.'  Mrs.  Howard: '  That  is  right;  I  hare  read  it.' 
G.  P. :  '  That  brings  me  nearer  to  my  father;  now  give  him  my 
tenderest  love  and  tell  him  that  I  am  very  near  him,  and  see  him 
almost  every  day,  if  I  could  go  by  days,  but  I  can't  judge  of 
that,  because  I  have  no  idea  of  time;  that  is  one  thing  I  have 
lost,  Hodgson. . . .  You  of  all  others  are  the  one  that  I  want  to 
be  absolutely  certain  of  my  identity. . . .  Hodgson,  I  mean,  and 
Jim,  I  want  you  both  to  feel  I  am  no  secondary  personality  of 
the  medium's  [struggling  to  get  the  last  phrase  out.]  . . .  Now, 
about  my  theory  of  spirit  life  independent  of  the  material  sub- 
stance. I  live,  think,  see,  hear,  know,  and  feel  just  as  clearly  as 
when  I  was  in  the  material  life,  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  explain  it 
to  you  as  you  would  naturally  suppose,  especially  when  the 
thoughts  have  to  be  expressed  through  substance  materially. . . . 
Nevertheless,  I  am  bound  to  do  just  all  I  can  for  you  to  prove 
to  you  that  I  (George  Pelham)  do  absolutely  exist,  independ- 
ently of  the  material  body  which  I  once  inhabited Tou  see  as 

I  was  explaining  to  you  about  thought,  and  had  not  strength 
materially  nor  time  to  finish,  I  will  go  on  to  that  again  and  in  a 
little  more  detail,  which  will  explain  to  you  (as  well  as  any- 
thing) how  and  what  I  am  now,  i.e.,  as  a  spiritual  Ego. 
Thought  is,  as  I  said  before,  in  no  wise  dependent  upon  body, 
but  must  necessarily,  as  you  see,  depend  upon  the  body  of  an- 
other person  or  Ego  in  the  material  to  express  one's  thought 
fully  after  the  annihilation  of  one's  own  material  body. ...  In 
consequence  of  this  you  see  that  there  must  necessarily  be  more 
or  less  confliction  between  one's  spiritual  Ego  or  mind,  and  the 
material  mind  or  Ego  of  the  one  which  you  are  obliged  to  use  to 
explain  these  difficult  problems  to  you,  my  friends,  in  the 
material ' 

"  Questions  asked  for.  R.  H.  asks  what  becomes  of  the  me- 
dium during  trance.  '  She  passes  out  as  your  etherial  goes  out 
when  you  sleep.'  R.  H. :  '  Well,  dp  you  see  that  there  is  a  con- 
flict, because  the  brain  substance  is,  so  to  speak,  saturated  with 
her  tendencies  of  thought? '  G.  P. :  '  No,  not  that,  but  the  solid 
substance  called  brain,  it  is  difficult  to  control  it,  simply  because 
it  is  material . . .  her  mind  leaves  the  brain  empty,  as  it  were,  and 
I  myself  or  other  spiritual  mind  or  thought  takes  the  empty 
brain,  and  there  is  where  and  when  the  conflict  arises.' " 

People  who  knew  G.  P.  have  said  to  me :  "  You  know  per- 
fectly well  that  George  was  too  intelligent  a  fellow  for  his 
spirit  to  talk  the  twaddle  it  is  alleged  to."  Well,  after  more 


478  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

attention  to  the  matter  than  they  have  given,  I  conclude  that 
I  don't  know  any  such  thing.  The  expression  "  my  tenderest 
love  "  at  the  beginning  of  the  foregoing  paragraph,  struck  me 
as  one  of  those  rare  and  happy  collocations  of  a  couple  of 
simple  words  that  come  only  to  people  with  a  touch  of  genius, 
and  the  next  dozen  lines  and  many  lines  throughout  his  com- 
munications, are  anything  but  twaddle.  Often  though  the 
sense  persists,  the  expression  weakens  into  superfluities  and 
repetitions,  but  hardly  worse  than  a  good  writer's  first  draft 
sometimes  shows,  because  of  sleepiness  or  wandering;  and  it 
would  not  be  extravagant  for  a  holder  of  the  spiritistic  hypo- 
thesis to  claim  that  in  such  cases  there  is  strong  evidence  to 
justify  ascribing  the  "  twaddle  "  to  difficulties  in  genuine  com- 
munication. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

HODGSON'S  SECOND  PIPER  REPORT,  1892-5  (Continued) 
II.  Miscellaneous  Sittings 

October,  1893.     (Pr.XIII.480f.) 

"  Sitter :  Mr.  L.  Vernon  Briggs,  Hanover,  Mass. 

" The  medium  was  then  given  a  handkerchief  of  a  Hono- 
lulu boy  who  had  been  shot  in  Boston — intentionally  or  unin- 
tentionally was  not  known.  This  boy  had  shown  great  affection 
for  a  person  present — following  them  [sic]  twice  to  Boston 
from  Honolulu  as  a  stowaway.  The  medium  showed  great 
suffering — placed  her  hand  to  her  side,  saying,  '  It's  my  stomach 
— Oh,  my  side.  They  put  me  out  too  quick.'  Here  the  medium 
seemed  to  suffer  too  much,  and  Dr.  Phinuit  was  asked  to  take 
control  and  speak  for  the  boy.  [This  makes  a  jumble  with  the 
claim  of  freedom  from  bodily  ills,  and  the  other  claim  of  repre- 
senting them  for  evidential  purposes.  H.H.]  Conversation  con- 
tinued through  Dr.  Phinuit.— '  Is  this  you,  Kalua?'  [This 
question  was  put  by  Mr.  Briggs. — R.H.]  '  Yes,  I  did  not  kill 
myself.  He  killed  me.  We  were  gambling — that  was  wrong. 
He  hid  my  purse  under  the  steps  where  I  was  killed.'  [The 
cellar  was  examined — five  planks,  one  below  another,  were  taken 
up  but  no  purse  was  found.]  Kalua  also  said  there  was  shrub- 
bery near  it.  [There  was  no  shrubbery  in  the  cellar  of  this 
house.] 

"  The  boy  seemed  delighted  to  speak  with  his  friend,  and 
finally  took  the  hand  and  wrote,  'This  is  splendid — Oh,  Dr., 
help  me.'  He  asked  questions,  and  tried  to  give  the  name  of  a 
place  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  which  finally  was  made  out.  He 
then  tried  to  write  his  own  language,  and  did  write  some  words 
which  were  understood.  For  instance,  he  wrote  'lei,'  which 
means  '  wreaths ' — and  which  he  always  made  daily  for  his 
friend. 

"  Dr.  Phinuit  said  what  he  heard  sounded  like  Italian — and 
that  the  boy  was  singing — which  he  was  always  doing  in  life. 
He  spoke  again  of  his  death,  and  said :  '  The  man  had  a  hot 
temper  and  disputed  with  me,  and  he  shot  me — he  did  not  mean 
to.'  [Question]  'What  became  of  the  revolver?'  [Answer] 
4  He  threw  the  revolver  into  the  hot-box  where  the  pepples  are. 
[Note. — This  was  true — the  revolver  was  found  in  the  furnace.] 
479 


480  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

[Known  to  Mr.  Briggs.  By  pepples  was  meant  pebbles,  inter- 
preted by  the  sitters  as  coals. — R.H.] 

" '  Did  you  get  my  trunk  ? '  *  Yes.'  '  So  glad  you  have  it- 
keep  my  things.'  <  Did  you  get  them,  M.  ? '  '  Yes.' 

"  He  was  asked  where  his  father  was.  And  we  could  only 
understand  Hiram. — Phinuit  could  not  get  Hawaii  for  some 
time — it  was  finally  written  Hawaiin  Islands.  We  asked  which 
one — Phinuit  said  it  was  Tawai.  This  was  interesting,  as  the 
island  is  spelled  with  a  K,  but  pronounced  with  a  T." 

Now,  if  you  please,  recall  what  has  already  been  said 
(p.  452f.)  about  scientific  and  sympathetic  sitters,  and  look 
forward  to  what  Hodgson  says  on  pages  520  and  526;  and 
then,  in  contrast  with  all  the  foregoing  touches  of  personality 
obtained  by  sympathetic  sitters,  compare  the  following  by  an 
eminent  man  of  science.  Probably  the  reader  free  from  the 
skeptical  habit  has  found  in  the  records  somewhat  more 
"  reminiscence  of  old  affection ...  to  make  the  presence  of  a 
beloved  spirit  seem  real." 

April  28th,  1892.     (Pr.XIII,460f.) 
"  Sitter :  Professor  J.  M.  Peirce.    R.  H.  taking  notes. 

" In  regard  to  the  indefinable,  unreasoned  impression 

made  by  the  interview, — a  point  to  which  I  am  forced  to  attrib- 
ute much  importance  in  the  case  of  some  of  my  friends  who 
have  visited  Mrs.  Piper, — I  must  say  that  I  received  none  that 
tends  to  strengthen  the  theory  of  a  communication  with  the  de- 
parted. No  personal  trait,  no  familiar  and  private  sign,  no 
reminiscence  of  old  affection,  no  characteristic  phrase  or  mode 
of  feeling  or  thought,  no  quality  of  manner  was  there,  to  make 
the  presence  of  a  beloved  spirit  seem  real.  I  never  for  one  in- 
stant felt  myself  to  be  speaking  with  anyone  but  Mrs.  Piper,  nor 
do  I  perceive  any  change  of  voice  or  personality,  beyond  what 

is  ordinarily  witnessed  in  skilled  impersonation Whatever 

the  explanation  of  the  phenomena,  I  believe  this  process  to  go 
on, — a  struggle  for  knowledge  to  whose  issue  the  sitter  con- 
tributes. J.  M.  PEIRCE. 

"P.S. — Since  writing  the  foregoing,  I  have  gone  over  the 
notes  in  detail,  making  a  memorandum  of  successes  and  failures. 
I  am  surprised  to  see  how  little  is  true.  Nearly  every  approach 
to  truth  is  at  once  vitiated  by  erroneous  additions  or  develop- 
ments." 

But  here  is  another  eminent  scientific  man  whom  I  know 
intimately,  but  who  has  the  sympathies  of  a  practising  physi- 
cian. 


Ch.  XXXII]  Scientific  Sitters  481 

May  6th,  1892.     (Pr.XIII,462f.) 

"  Sitters :  Dr.  and  Mrs.  L.  E.  H.    New  York. 

"  [Dr.  H.  says :]  The  large  number  of  little  details  brought 
out  about  the  family  are  extremely  interesting,  the  most  marked 
being  those  relating  to  Walter,  his  death  and  his  friends,  and 
to  David, — many  of  the  remarks  made  by  both  of  these  are 
strictly  characteristic.  However,  nothing  appeared  in  the  sit- 
ting which  could  be  afterwards  confirmed,  which  was  not  fully 
known  either  to  Mrs.  H.  or  myself.  [Otherwise  confirmation, 
even  of  truth,  might  be  impossible.  H.H.]  All  the  things  here 
brought  out  might  be  explained  as  simply  mind-reading,  but  a 
wonderful  example  of  that." 

So  I  thought  for  some  time  after  my  sitting,  but  I  thought 
differently  on  knowing  more  and  thinking  more.  This  is 
another  illustration  of  the  fallacious  treatment  of  mere  know- 
ledge of  facts  as  the  main  indication  of  personality. 

Another  eminent  scientific  sitter  blest  with  a  poetic  imagina- 
tion (Pr.  XIII,  524-5) : 

May  25M,  1894. 

"  Sitters :  Professor  and  Mrs.  N.  S.  Shaler,  at  the  house  of 
Professor  W.  James Account  of  the  sitting  given  by  Pro- 
fessor Shaler ...  in  a  letter  to  Professor  James. 

" The  statements  made  by  Mrs.  Piper,  in  my  opinion, 

entirely  exclude  the  hypothesis  that  they  were  the  results  of  con- 
jectures, directed  by  the  answers  made  by  my  wife 

"  While  I  am  disposed  to  hold  to  the  hypothesis  that  the  per- 
formance is  one  that  is  founded  on  some  kind  of  deceit,  I  must 
confess  that  close  observation  of  the  medium  made  on  me  the 
impression  that  she  is  honest.  Seeing  her  under  any  other  con- 
ditions, I  should  not  hesitate  to  trust  my  instinctive  sense  as  to 
the  truthfulness  of  the  woman. 

"  I  venture  also  to  note,  though  with  some  hesitancy,  the  fact 
that  the  ghost  of  the  ancient  Frenchman  who  never  existed,  but 
who  purports  to  control  Mrs.  Piper,  though  he  speaks  with  a 
first-rate  French  accent,  does  not,  so  far  as  I  can  find,  make  the 
characteristic  blunders  in  the  order  of  his  English  words  which 
we  find  in  actual  life.  Whatever  the  medium  is,  I  am  convinced 
that  this  '  influence '  is  a  preposterous  scoundrel. 

"  I  think  I  did  not  put  strongly  enough  the  peculiar  kind  of 
knowledge  which  the  medium  seems  to  have  concerning  my 

wife's  brother's  affairs They  had  the  real  life  quality.  So, 

too,  the  name  of  a  man  who  was  to  have  married  my  wife's 
brother's  daughter,  but  who  died  a  month  before  the  time  fixed 
for  the  wedding,  was  correctly  given,  both  as  regards  surname 
and  Christian  name,  though  the  Christian  name  was  not  remem- 
bered by  my  wife  or  me.  So,  too,  the  fact  that  all  trouble  on 


482  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

account  of  the  missing  will  was  within  a  fortnight  after  the 
death  of  Mr.  Page  cleared  away  by  the  action  of  the  children 
was  unknown.  The  deceased  is  represented  as  still  troubled, 
though  he  purported  to  see  just  what  was  going  on  in  his 
family." 

Another  eminent  scientific  man,  though  one  also  blessed 
with  a  poetical  imagination  (XIII,  482-3) : 

"1524,  Walnut  Street,  PHILADELPHIA,  PA.,  January  27th,  1894. 

"  MY  DEAR  JAMES. — I  have  read,  with  care,  since  the  receipt 
of  your  note,  the  memoranda  you  and  I  made  at  my  sitting  with 
Mrs.  Piper. 

"  If  I  had  never  seen  you  and  heard  your  statements  in  regard 
to  Mrs.  P.,  my  afternoon  sitting  with  her  would  have  led  me  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  whole  thing  was  a  fraud  and  a  very 
stupid  one.  Of  course  I  do  not  think  this,  because  I  am  bound 
to  consider  all  the  statements  made,  not  merely  the  time  spent 
with  me.  As  to  this  point  I  want  to  make  myself  clear,  because 
I  should  like  on  another  occasion  to  repeat  my  sitting 

"  On  re-reading  your  notes  I  find  absolutely  nothing  of  value. 
None  of  the  incidents  are  correct,  and  none  of  the  very  vague 
things  hinted  at  are  true,  nor  have  they  any  kind  or  sort  of 

relation  to  my  life,  nor  is  there  one  name  correctly  given 

"  S.  WEIR  MITCHELL  (M.D.)." 

With  which  contrast  the  following.  This  sitting  will  appeal 
very  differently  to  different  temperaments.  To  some  it  will 
probably  appear  illusive  gush,  and  they  can  skip.  But  skip- 
ping does  not  account  for  it.  To  others  it  will  probably 
appear  the  most  important  sitting  on  record.  Whether  one 
scoffs  or  prays,  it  will  at  least  be  worth  while  to  use  a  little 
imagination — to  see  the  entranced  medium,  with  face  gen- 
erally as  expressionless  as  if  a  statue  were  speaking,  pouring 
forth  at  one  moment  some  brusquerie  in  the  rough  deep  tones 
of  Phinuit ;  at  the  next,  in  the  same  voice  softened  to  gentle- 
ness, petting  a  child;  then,  perhaps,  a  return  of  the  gruff 
tones  in  some  biting  sarcasm  to  some  interloping  control; 
then  perhaps  issuing  from  the  same  mouth,  a  child's  voice 
singing  the  little  boat  song — all  going  on  amid  the  weeping 
relatives  who  join  in  the  song,  with  the  sympathetic  Hodgson 
assisting  the  performance,  and  probably  perplexed  to  know 
whether  he  is  in  Heaven  or  in  bedlam.  I  confess  that  I  have 
such  perplexity,  with  the  doubt  that  James  intimates  some- 
where, whether  so  important  a  section  of  the  universe — one 


Ch.  XXXII]  The  Sutton  Sittings  483 

including  so  much  and  such  deep  feeling,  can  be  bedlam.  And 
yet  look  at  the  mediaeval  church  at  intervals  for  nearly  fifteen 
centuries,  and  from  the  Nile  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules! 

Sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper  at  Arlington  Heights,  December  Sth, 
1893.  (Pr.XIII,485f.) 

"  Present,  Mrs.  Howard,  Rev.  S.  W.  Sutton,  and  myself  [Mrs. 
Sutton.  H.H.]  Report  by  Mrs.  Sutton  from  notes  taken  by 
Mrs.  Howard  during  the  sitting. 

[Hodgson  says  (p.  484):]  "Mrs.  Sutton  [the  sitter.  H.H.] 
herself  has  had  many  remarkable  psychical  experiences,  espe- 
cially in  seeing  the  '  figures '  of  deceased  persons,  and  in  1887 
published  a  little  book  giving  an  account  of  some  of  these.  It 
was  called  Light  on  the  Hidden  Way,  with  an  Introduction  by 
James  Freeman  Clarke. 

" Phinuit  said :  '. . .  A  little  child  is  coming  to  you. 

This  is  the  dearest  lady  I  have  met  for  a  long  time — the  most 
light  I  have  seen  while  in  Mrs.  Piper's  body.  He  reaches  out 
his  hands  as  to  a  child,  and  says  coaxingly:  Come  here,  dear. 
Don't  be  afraid.  Come,  darling,  here  is  your  mother.  He  de- 
scribes the  child  and  her  '  lovely  curls.'  Where  is  papa  ?  Want 
papa.  [He  takes  from  the  table  a  silver  medal.]  I  want  this — 
want  to  bite  it.  [She  used  to  bite  it.*]  [The  notes  marked  with 
asterisks  were  added  some  four  years  after  the  sitting.  H.H.] 
[Reaches  for  a  string  of  buttons.]  Quick  1  I  want  to  put  them 
in  my  mouth.  [The  buttons  also.  To  bite  the  buttons  was  for- 
bidden. He  exactly  imitated  her  arch  manner.*]  I  will  get 

her  to  talk  to  you  in  a  minute A  lady  is  here  who  passed 

out  of  the  body  with  tumor  in  the  bowels.  [My  friend,  Mrs.  C., 
died  of  ovarian  tumor.*]  She  has  the  child— she  is  bringing  her 
to  me.  [He  takes  some  keys.]  These  bring  her  to  me — these 
and  the  buttons.  Now  she  will  speak  to  me.  Who  is  Dodo? 
[Her  name  for  her  brother  George.]  Speak  to  me  quickly.  I 
want  you  to  call  Dodo.  Tell  Dodo  I  am  happy.  Cry  for  me  no 
more.  [Puts  hand  to  throat.]  No  sore  throat  any  more.  [She 
had  pain  and  distress  of  the  throat  and  tongue.*]  Papa,  speak 
to  me.  Can  not  you  see  me?  I  am  not  dead,  I  am  living.  I 
am  happy  with  Grandma.  [My  mother  had  been  dead  many 
years.*]  Phinuit  says:  Here  are  two  more.  One,  two,  three 
here, — one  older  and  one  younger  than  Kakie.  [Correct.*] 
That  is  a  boy,  the  one  that  came  first.  [Both  were  boys.*]  . . . 
Was  this  little  one's  tongue  very  dry?  She  keeps  showing  me 
her  tongue.  [Her  tongue  was  paralyzed,  and  she  suffered  much 
with  it  to  the  end.]  Her  name  is  Katharine.  [Correct.*]  She 
calls  herself  Kakie.  She  passed  out  last.  [Correct.*]  Tell 
Dodo  Kakie  is  in  a  spiritual  body.  Where  is  horsey?  [I  gave 
him  a  little  horse.]  Big  horsey,  not  this  little  one.  [Probably 
refers  to  a  toy  cart-horse  she  used  to  like.]  Dear  Papa,  take 


484  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

me  wide.  [To  ride.]  Do  you  miss  your  Kakie?  Do  you  see 
Kakie?  The  pretty  white  flowers  you  put  on  me,  I  have  here. 
I  took  their  little  souls  out  and  kept  them  with  me.  Phinuit 
describes  lilies  of  the  valley,  which  were  the  flowers  we  placed 
in  her  casket. 

"  Papa,  want  to  go  to  wide  horsey.  [She  plead  this  all  through 
her  illness.]  Every  day  I  go  to  see  horsey.  I  like  that  horsey. 
I  go  to  ride.  I  am  with  you  every  day.  [We  had  just  come 
from  Mr.  Button's  parents,  where  we  drove  frequently,  and  I 
had  seen  Kakie  with  us.  (This  means  that  Mrs.  Sutton  had 
seen  the  '  apparition '  of  Kakie. — R.H.)  Margaret  (her  sister) 
is  still  there,  driving  daily.]  [I  asked  if  she  remembered  any- 
thing after  she  was  brought  down  stairs.]  I  was  so  hot,  my 
head  was  so  hot.  [Correct.*]  [I  asked  if  she  knew  who  was 
caring  for  her,  if  it  was  any  comfort  to  her  to  have  us  with  her.] 
Oh,  yes, — oh,  yes.  [I  asked  if  she  suffered  in  dying.]  I  saw  the 
light  and  followed  it  to  this  pretty  lady.  You  will  love  me 
always?  You  will  let  me  come  to  you  at  home.  I  will  come  to 
you  every  day,  and  I  will  put  my  hand  on  you,  when  you  go  to 
sleep.  Do  not  cry  for  me, — that  makes  me  sad.  Eleanor.  I 
want  Eleanor.  [Her  little  sister.  She  called  her  much  during 
her  last  illness.*]  I  want  my  buttons.  Row,  Row, — my  song, — 
sing  it  now.  I  sing  with  you.  [We  sing,  and  a  soft  child  voice 
sings  with  us]  [i.e.  Mrs.  Piper's  child-voice.  H.H.], 
"  Lightly  row,  lightly  row, 

O'er  the  merry  waves  we  go, 

Smoothly  glide,  smoothly  glide 

With  the  ebbing  tide. 

"  [Phinuit  hushes  us,  and  Kakie  finishes  alone.] 
"  Let  the  winds  and  waters  be 

Mingled  with  our  melody, 

Sing  and  float,  sing  and  float, 

In  our  little  boat. 

Papa  sing.  I  hear  your  voice,  but  it  is  so  heavy.  [Papa  and 
Kakie  sing.  Phinuit  exclaims:  See  her  little  curls  fly!]  [Her 
•curls  were  not  long  enough  to  fly  at  death,  six  weeks  before.*] 
Kakie  sings :  Bye,  bye,  ba  bye,  bye,  bye,  O  baby  bye.  Sing  that 
Tfdth  me,  papa.  [Papa  and  Kakie  sing.  These  two  songs  were 
the  ones  she  used  to  sing.]  [She  sang  slight  snatches  of  others 
in  life — not  at  the  sitting.*]  Where  is  Dinah?  I  want  Dinah. 
[Dinah  was  an  old  black  rag-doll,  not  with  us.]  I  want  Bagie 
[her  name  for  her  sister  Margaret.]  I  want  Bagie  to  bring  me 
my  Dinah.  I  want  to  go  to  Bagie.  I  want  Bagie.  I  see  Bagie 
all  the  time.  Tell  Dodo  when  you  see  him  that  I  love  him. 
Dear  Dodo.  He  used  to  march  with  me, — he  put  me  way  up. 
[Correct.*]  Dodo  did  sing  to  me.  That  was  a  horrid  body.  I 
liave  a  pretty  body  now.  Tell  Grandma  I  love  her.  I  want  her 
to  know  I  live.  Grandma  does  know  it,  Marmie — Great— grand- 
ma, Marmie.  [We  called  her  Great  Grandmother  Marmie  but 


Ch.  XXXII]  The  Sutton  Sittings  485 

she  always  called  her  Grammie.  Both  Grandmother  and  Great 
Grandmother  were  then  living.*] 

"  Here  is  Hattie.  Speak  to  her.  I  am  so  happy.  [Button 
string  broke — Phinuit  is  distressed.  We  gather  them  up  and 
propose  to  re-string  them.]  Hattie  says  that  is  a  pretty  picture 
there.  [Hattie  was  the  name  of  a  dear  friend  who  died  several 
years  ago.  She  was  very  fond  of  my  copy  of  the  Sistine  Ma- 
donna, and  in  her  last  illness  asked  to  have  it  hung  over  her 
bed,  where  it  remained  till  after  she  passed  away.  This  did  not 
occur  to  me  when  Phinuit  gave  her  words,  nor  for  some  weeks 
after  the  sitting.]  [It  was  plainly  stored  away  somewhere  all 
the  time.  In  the  cosmic  soul?  Such  cases  are  frequent.  H.H.] 
I  want  the  tic-tic.  Take  the  buttons,  and  give  me  the  pretty 
tic-tic.  Open  the  tic-tic.  Mamma,  do  you  love  me  so?  Don't 
cry  for  me.  I  want  to  see  the  mooley-cow, — where  is  the  mooley- 
cow?  [R.  H.:  Did  she  so  call  it?  A.:  Yes.*]  Take  me  to  see 
the  mooley-cow.  [She  used  to  be  taken  almost  daily  to  see  the 
cow.]  Phinuit  says :  I  cannot  quite  hear  what  it  is  she  calls  the 
tic-tic.  She  calls  it  '  the  clock/  and  holds  it  to  her  ear.  [That 
was  what  she  called  it.]  . . .  She  has  the  most  beautiful,  great, 
dark  violet  eyes.  [Correct.*]  She  is  very  full  of  life — very  in- 
dependent, but  very  sweet  in  disposition 

"  [Kakie  again.]  I  will  put  my  hand  on  papa's  head  when  he 
goes  to  sleep.  Want  the  babee.  [Her  characteristic  pronuncia- 
tion.*] Phinuit  takes  the  doll  and  says :  She  wants  it  to  cuddle 
up  to  her,  so.  She  wants  to  sing  to  it,  Bye  baby,  bye  bye. 
God  knew  best,  so  do  not  worry.  The  little  book.  Kakie  wants 
the  little  book.  [She  liked  a  linen  picture  book.*]  . . .  Phinuit 
describes  a  gentleman  with  a  beautiful  face,  greatly  agitated, 
also  a  very  large  gentleman  with  him — he  was  a  great  preacher 
— Phillips — Phillips  Brooks.  He  says :  I  want  to  say  that  when 
I  made  mistakes  in  life,  I  hope  you  will  do  all  in  your  power 
to  rectify  them.  [I  asked  if  he  did  not  believe  in  an  after-life?] 
Yes,  but  I  did  not  believe  in  the  possibility  of  communication 

after  death Here  we  see  its  full  importance.  [Mrs.  Howard 

notes :  '  I  knew  Phillips  Brooks  from  the  time  I  was  a  girl  and 
had  more  than  one  long  talk  with  him.'  It  was  known  to  myself 
and  also  to  Mrs.  Howard,  that  the  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks  had 
spoken  disparagingly  of  attempts  to  obtain  communications 
from  the  '  deceased '  through  Mrs.  Piper's  trance.— R.H.] 

"  [There  was  also  a  long  and  painful  effort  with  great  agita- 
tion and  anxiety  to  give  an  address  asked  for.  This  address  is 
not  known  by  those  desiring  to  have  it.  To  obtain  it  was  the 
object  of  the  communication  with  the  gentleman  whose  necktie 
was  placed  in  Mrs.  Piper's  hand.  Nothing  intelligible  was  ob- 
tained.*] " 

If  nobody  knew  this  address,  the  failure  is  consonant  with 
the  fact  that  in  no  sitting  whose  report  I  have  ever  read,  has 


486  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

any  communication  been  made  of  any  new  knowledge  that 
could  not  be  obtained  by  the  sweat  of  the  mortal  brow.  The 
mere  fact  of  immortality,  if  it  be  a  fact,  may  perhaps  with  the 
aid  of  a  little  faith,  be  so  imparted,  and  with  it  much  that  is 
worth  more  than  most  other  knowledge;  but  I  have  not  met 
anything  farther  of  importance.  The  cases  of  apparent  pro- 
phecy are  not  yet  frequent  enough  or  clear  enough  to  reason 
from.  In  fact  nothing  seems  to  be  but  the  dramatic  veri- 
similitude, the  range  of  the  controls'  knowledge,  their  appar- 
ent growth,  and  the  reasonableness  of  the  conditions  (so  far  as 
they  can  explain  them)  under  which  they  profess  to  be.  Of 
all  this  more  anon. 

A  little  more  of  the  sort  of  thing  that  must  be  infinitely 
precious  to  some  minds  follows  (Pr.  XIII,  489) : 

"After  the  writing,  we  thought  the  sitting  over,  and  Mr. 
Sutton  had  gone  across  the  room,  when  Kakie's  little  voice  piped 
up.  Want  papa — want  papa.  Dear  papa.  [Phinuit  pats  his 
face.]  Do  you  love  me,  papa  ?  Want  babee.  Sings,  Bye,  bye — 
papa,  sing — mama  sing.  Cuddles  doll  up  in  neck  and  sings. 
[An  exact  imitation  marvelously  animated  and  real.*] 

"  It  may  Be  of  interest  to  note  that  the  day  before  the  sitting, 
Mr.  Sutton  had  questioned  whether  it  was  right  or  desirable  for 
them  to  bring  them  back  for  our  gratification.  It  did  not  occur 
to  him  during  the  sitting,  but  Alonzo  said — '  Do  not  think  it 
wrong  to  bring  us  back — we  love  to  come.' 

"  The  '  sitting '  was  as  a  whole  very  satisfactory.  The  con- 
versation did  not  follow  the  order  of  our  conscious  minds,  and 
had  the  movement  and  vivacity  of  objective  personalities. 

"KATHARINE  PAINE  SUTTON." 

A  second  sitting  of  the  same  people,  Dec.  21st,  was  much 
like  the  first.  I  cull  a  few  touches.  There's  nothing  to  pre- 
vent anybody  from  skipping  them. 

Second  sitting  with  Mrs.  Piper  at  Arlington  Heightsf 
December  21**,  1893.  (Pr.XIII,489f.) 

"Present,  Mrs.  Howard  and  myself  [Mrs.  Sutton.  H.H.]. 
Report  by  Mrs.  Sutton  from  notes  taken  by  Mrs.  Howard  during 
the  sitting. 

" Dr.  Phinuit  assumed  control, . . .  recognized  me  cor- 
dially and  said:  Baby  wants  to  see  her  mamma,  come,  dear.  A 
sweet  child  voice  sang  softly  [the  little  boat  song  as  before. 
H.H.] 

"  [The  child  voice  again.]  Kakie  did  see  papa.  Papa  is 
marching  with  Eleanor.  Sings,  '  March,  march,'  etc.  [Eleanor 


Ch.  XXXII]  The  Button  Sittings  487 

is  a  little  invalid.  Mr.  Sutton  carries  her  a  great  deal — often 
sings,  '  March,'  etc. — had  done  so  at  this  time.*] 

"  I  asked  her  to  sing  '  Bye  Bye '  with  me,  which  she  did  pre- 
cisely as  when  here.  I  could  not  repress  the  tears.  Phinuit 
said:  You  must  not  weep.  When  the  little  shroud  is  wet,  the 
child  grieves. 

"  '  Kakie '  says :  Dear  Mamma,  do  you  love  me  so?  I  love  you 
and  I  see  you.  I  am  happy  here,  I  have  so  many  little  children 
to  play  with  and  I  love  my  Auntie.  I  like  to  be  with  you.  I 
play  with  Eleanor.  [Living  sister.  H.H.]  Does  Eleanor  see 
me?  I  play  with  her  every  day.  I  like  the  little  bed.  I  play 
with  it.  [The  lady  with  whom  we  stayed  in  Duxbury  had  lent 
Eleanor  a  doll's  bed,  which  she  greatly  enjoyed.  Of  course  we 
had  not  associated  it  with  Kakie.]  Where  is  Bagie?  [Her 
name  for  her  sister  Margaret.] 

"  Phinuit  said :  Mary  C.  wishes  to  speak  to  you.  [See  previ- 
ous sitting. — R.H.]  She  said:  We  will  care  for  your  babies. 
We  lore  them  dearly.  Hattie  [a  deceased  friend*]  is  here. 
She  loves  them  too. ...  I  can  see  you  and. know  the  darkness  and 

perplexities,  but  it  is  the  darkness  just  before  the  dawn 1  see 

you  are  nervous  and  impatient  sometimes  when  the  aching  body 
is  tired  out, — but  control  your  nerves,  can't  you,  dear?  that  is 
all  I  want  to  change  in  you.  I  know  you  try,  but  it  seems  as  if 
you  ought  to  rise  above  it.  [This  is  not  in  the  least  like  her.*] 

"  Phinuit  said :  There  are  many  here  anxious  to  speak  to  you. 
Here  is  your  father  and  your  mother.  They  have  been  here  a 
long  time, — your  mother  came  first.  [Correct.*]  They  are  very 
bright.  They  want  to  tell  you  to  be  patient.  They  see  bright 
days  before  you.  [No.  We  have  had  much  illness  and  tribula- 
tions manifold  with  smaller  income  than  ever  before.*] n 

The  most  scientific  investigator,  despite  all  the  suspicious 
emotional  element,  must  at  least  admit  Mrs.  Button's  candor. 

"  Kakie  wants  her  buttons.  [I  gave  them  to  Phinuit.]  She 
wants  them  all,  they  are  not  all  here.  [At  the  previous  sitting 
the  string  had  broken  and  they  scattered  on  the  floor.  We 
thought  we  found  them  all,  but  when  Mrs.  Piper's  sweeping  day 
came,  the  rest  were  found.]  [How  is  this  for  "  evidence  "  ?  H.H.] 
Phinuit  said:  There  are  eignt  buttons  here.  Kakie,  let  me  see 
how  many  you  have.  [He  counts  twelve  in  French.]  I  ex- 
claimed: Do  you  have  buttons  there?  He  replied:  She  had  not 
the  button,  but  she  has  the  idea  of  them,  which  is  the  reality. 
[See  Chapter  XXIII.  H.H.] 

"  [Kakie  asks  for  her  ball.  I  gave  it  to  Phinuit,  who  tries  to 
find  what  she  wants  to  do  with  it.]  Bite  it?  Toss  it?  Roll  it? 
Throw  it?  [No,  she  wants  a  string.  Mrs.  H.  gave  him  a  string. 
He  tries  to  tie  it  around  the  ball.]  [A  little  red  wooden  ball 
with  a  hole  through  it.  The  ball  had  a  string  through  it  when 
she  used  to  play  with  it.*]  No,  that  is  not  right,  through  it. 


488  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

There,  there,  be  a  good  little  girl.  Don't  cry.  Don't  be  impa- 
tient, you  want  your  mamma  to  see  how  you  can  do  it,  so  she  will 
know  it  is  you,  don't  you,  dear?  Old  man  will  do  it  for  her. 
[The  "  old  man  "  was  Mrs.  Piper,  was  he?  H.H.]  [He  put  the 
string  through,  held  it  up,  and  hit  it  with  the  finger,  making  it 
swing.]  That  is  it,  is  it  not,  darling?  Nice  little  girl  as  ever 
was.  [While  she  was  sick,  it  was  her  great  delight  to  have  me 
hold  the  string,  and  let  her  hit  the  little  red  ball  with  her  finger 
or  spoon.  She  made  the  motions  as  if  doing  it,  after  she  be- 
came unconscious.] 

"  [Again  I  saw  her  for  a  moment,  (i.e.,  Mrs.  Sutton  herself 
saw  the  '  apparition '  of  Kakie.  See  introductory  remarks  to 
her  sittings. — R.H.)  standing  at  the  table,  trying  to  reach  a 
spool  of  tangled  red  knitting  silk,  and  at  the  same  moment 
Phinuit  reached  for  it,  saying :]  She  wants  that,  she  and  Eleanor 
used  to  play  with.  She  calls  it  Eleanor's.  She  is  delighted  with 
it — it  brings  her  nearer  her  little  sister.  [All  true,  but  I  had 
not  connected  it  with  Eleanor  in  my  thought.]  I  gave  Phinuit 
a  lock  of  Eleanor's  hair.  He  felt  it  a  moment  and  said:  You 
cut  that  close  to  the  head — that  was  right.  I  can  see  her  per- 
fectly— lovely  little  girl.  [I  had  not  told  him  whose  hair  it 
was.]  . . .  How  that  poor  child  has  suffered!  [She  is  recovering 

from  spinal  meningitis  and  paralysis.] 

[He  gives  a  correct  diagnosis  and  advice  that  apparently  was 
good :  for  after  them  he  continues.  H.H.]  :  "  I  do  not  see  her  go 

out  of  the  body She  must  have  great  care,  or  she  will  go  put 

like  that  [snapping  his  fingers].  [She ...  begins  to...  im- 
prove  *]  [Phinuit  returns  to  Kakie.  H.H.]  . . .  She  wants 

Eleanor's  hair.  Phinuit  makes  the  motion  of  drawing  something 
from  it  and  giving  it  to  her,  saying :  Now  she  has  it.  She  can  get 

nearer  her  little  sister  with  it I  gave  him  a  bit  of  Mr.  Button's 

hair,  without  saying  whose  it  was.  As  he  took  it,  he  said  laugh- 
ing: That  is  papa's  hair, — mighty  little  of  it,  was  not  he  stingy 
of  it  though?  [When  I  cut  it,  Mr.  Sutton  warned  me  playfully 
that  he  had  not  much  to  spare.]  He  will  live  to  be  a  hundred. 
You  need  not  worry  about  that.  [Mrs.  S.  has  all  of  a  woman's 
solicitude  for  a  perfectly  healthy  husband.— S.W.S.*] 

"  Phinuit  exclaimed :  I  see  you  in  such  a  pleasant  home !  All 
the  surroundings  so  pleasant — lovely  trees.  Mr.  Sutton  will  re- 
ceive a  '  call '  soon  from  a  good  parish,  and  will  accept  it. ... 
[I  named  several  places.]  I  think  it  ends  in  ton — Winchendon 
sounds  like  it. ...  Vestry,  church  parlors,  etc. — a  comfortable 
support ...  it  will  be  a  permanent  settlement. . . .  [We  came  to 
Athol  to  a  small  struggling  parish  and  small  salary !  No  vestry, 
or  anything  of  the  sort. . . .  The  permanence  of  the  settlement  is 
problematical.*] 

"Phinuit  turns  his  head,  as  if  looking  at  a  child  beside  me, 
and  says :  Yes,  I  know  '  Kakie  wants,'  but  Kakie  must  be  pa- 
tient, others  want  to  speak  to  mamma.  [She  was  very  persistent 


Ch.  XXXII]          The  Heywood  Sittings  489 

with  '  Kakie  wants '  when  here.]  . . .  You  dear  little  girl,  you 
want  to  get  in  mamma's  lap,  and  you  shall.  [Phinuit  makes  the 
movement  of  lifting  her  into  my  lap,  and  for  a  moment  I  saw 
her  distinctly  lying  in  my  arms,  with  the  sweet  look  of  demure 
contentment  she  used  to  have  when  I  held  her.]  Phinuit  said: 
You  have  a  child  here  who  came  long  ago.  He  is  a  beautiful 
spirit  now,  he  does  not  get  near  enough  for  me  to  hear  him, 
but  I  can  see  him.  And  there  is  another  little  one  here,  too, 
they  call  '  baby,'  not  long  here,  it  never  lived  on  earth.  Mary 
C-— —  has  it.  She  does  love  that  baby  so,  she  and  Hattie.  Eliz- 
abeth is  here,  too,  they  love  you  and  will  care  for  your  babies. 
[Elizabeth.  Possibly  an  old  lady  I  dearly  loved,  but  I  never 
called  her  or  heard  her  called  Elizabeth.*] 

"  Kakie  wants  the  little  bit  of  a  book  mamma  read  by  her 
bedside,  with  the  pretty,  bright  things  hanging  from  it — mamma 
put  it  in  her  hands — the  last  thing  she  remembers.  [This  is 
curious.  It  was  a  little  prayer-book,  with  cross,  anchor,  and 
other  symbols,  in  silver,  attached  to  ribbons  for  marking  the 

places 1  read  it ...  when  she  seemed  unconscious,  and  after 

her  death  I  placed  it  in  her  hands  to  prevent  the  blood  settling 
in  the  nails.  The  last  thing  she  remembered  was  my  placing  it 
in  her  hands !  What  does  this  signify  ?]  [Mrs.  Piper  held  her 
hands  in  just  that  position  when  she  asked  for  it.*]  " 

Here  is  a  specimen  of  what  investigators  have  to  contend 
with.  That  it  can  be  got  up  deliberately  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment,  or  is  apt  to  be  intended,  seems  hardly  supposable. 

March  3rd,  1894.    (Pr.Xin,501-2.) 

"  Mr.  Charles  Heywood,  Gardner,  Mass.  (Associate  Am.S.P.R.) 

"R.  H.  present  part  of  the  time. 

"Mr.  Heywood  accompanied  me  for  a  sitting  on  March  1st, 
1894.  There  was  no  speech  but  apparently  strenuous  attempts 
at  writing  as  by  different  persons.  The  oddities  of  spelling  and 
writing  were  probably  Phinuit's.  The  following  is  the  complete 
record  of  the  writing  of  March  1st. 

"  no  light  no  light  here  [Spelt  backwards  and  written  for- 
wards, on  thgil,  etc.]. 

"no  liht  liht  [Spelt  backwards  and  written  forwards]  no 
[written  correctly]. 

"  no  liht  can't  stay  y  yes  no  liht  [Spelt  backwards  and  written 
forwards]. 

"  can't  stay  [Spelt  forwards  and  written  backwards,  i.e.,  yats 
tnac,  beginning  with  the  letter  c  and  writing  from  right  to 
left],  here  [spelt  backwards  and  written  forwards,  the  h  in 
mirror-writing].  Phinuit  [mirror-writing]  followed  by  a  stroke 
with  an  r  perhaps  intended  for  Dr.  on  tighl  [or  lighl].  too 
bad  [spelt  backwards  and  written  forwards]  bad  dab  oot.  Dr. 
Phinuit  [spelt  backwards  and  written  forwards,  and  some  of  the 


490  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

letters  mirror-writing].  Adieu  [Spelt  backwards  and  written 
forwards].  No  use  G.  P.  [followed  by  a  scrawl  suggesting 
Adieu] " 

Extracts  from  Letters  from  Mr.  Heywood.    (Pr.XIII,503f.) 
GARDNER,  January  Wth,  1895. 

" Phinuit  made  some  remarkable  prophecies  at  my  last 

sitting.  The  minor  predictions,  many  of  them,  were  fulfilled, 
and  I  naturally  expected  a  corresponding  realization  of  the  two 
great  predictions  up  to  which  the  lesser  led ;  but  the  Doctor  evi- 
dently took  too  much  for  granted.  The  big  things  failed  to 
occur." 

GARDNER,  February  Wth,  1896. 

" I  send  all  which  I  can  positively  submit  to  strange 

eyes,  and  I  beg  to  assure  you  that  what  is  omitted  is  of  a  char- 
acter which  exhibits  startling  internal  evidences  of  being  com- 
municated by  the  personality  of  my  dead  wife Phinuit's  read- 
ings from  locks  of  hair,  gloves,  etc.,  pressed  against  Mrs.  Piper's 
forehead,  were  excellent  so  far  as  they  related  to  the  character 
of  the  persons  and  their  circumstances,  but  his  predictions  were 
simply  my  own  ideas  of  the  probabilities,  and  in  almost  every 

instance  have  failed Favorite  expressions  often  used  by  her 

[his  wife  when  living.  H.H.],  i.e., '  Don't  be  stupid! '  '  Now  you 
are  waking  up!'  'Well,  I  should  say  I  had!'  'Don't  IV 
'Well  I  guess!'  'Dear,'  and  particularly  'Dear  little  boy,' 
flowed  from  the  pencil  in  such  a  familiar  way  that  I  felt  the 
influence  of  her  personality  very  strongly.  Some  little  traits 
were  shown  in  the  impatient  brushing  away  of  loose  articles 
upon  the  table,  and  the  pounding  of  the  table  with  the  fingers 
when  perplexed.  When  I  saw  that  motion  I  exclaimed :  '  Ah ! 
now  I  recognize  you  beyond  a  doubt ! '  Little  things  like  that 
seemed  to  supply  the  missing  links  in  the  chain  of  identity." 

From  the  Automatic  Writing  at  Sitting  of  March  3rd,  1894. 
(Pr.XIII,505f.) 

"  D. :  '  Charlie,  I  am  Dorothy  [a  pet  name  of  my  wife] 
C-h-a-r-1-i-e,  this  is  to  you.  Will  tell  you  all  soon.  Wait  for 
him'  [me,  her.] 

"  G.  P. :  '  The  lady  is '  [through?]  [This  was  a  fragment  in- 
tended for  somebody  who  had  sat  the  previous  day.]  [Such  in- 
terpolations are  quite  frequent.  H.H.]  Read  [a  scrawl,  perhaps 
meant  for  '  Charlie.']  [Daisy  ?]  I  am  here  [a  scrawl,  then 
'  strong.']  C.  H. :  '  What  is  that? '  G.  P. :  '  Strong.  I  am  and 
I  saw  her  and  in  consequence  right  it  for  you.'  Hodgson  and 
Heywood :  'Ha  ha !  See  How  George  spells  "  write " ! '  G.  P. : 
'Am  I  not  right?  [Presumably  to  D.  P.  B.]  Well,  do  speak 
and  I  will  help  you.  This  was  a  mistake,  if  you  please ' " 

The  initials  evidently  refer  to  Mrs.   Heywood,   and  are 


Ch.  XXXII]          The  Heywood  Sittings  491 

probably  those  of  her  maiden  name.  They  are  spelled  out 
below. 

"C.  H,:  'Is  this  Daisy?'  D.  P.  B.:  'Yes,  and  I  love  you 
and  I  want  you  to  forgive  me  for  not  coming  before.  I  tried  so 
hard  to  reach  you,  dear  Charley,  you  know —  •'  [Neither  I  nor 
my  wife  ever  spelt  my  name  '  Charley.' — C.H.,  '96]  [Date  of 
note.  Sittings  were  in  '94.  H.H.]  C.  H.:  'Yes,  I  know,  dear, 
but  now  you  have  come  to  me.'  D.  P.  B. :  '  Oh,  speak  to  me ! 
My  cough  is  right  all  now  [all  right  now.]  Where  is  my  pic- 
ture, dear?  Give  it  to  me  a  minute.'  [My  wife  had  no  cough.] 
[I  carry  a  photograph  of  my  wife  in  my  watch  case.  Taking 
the  watch  from  my  pocket  I  placed  it  in  the  hand,  which  rested 
upon  it  a  few  seconds,  and  then  resumed  as  follows :]  D.  P.  B. : 
'  Dp  you  miss  me  now  ?  I  see  you  always.'  C.  H. : '  I  can  scarcely 
believe  this  to  be  you,  Daisy.  Can't  you  give  me  some  proof?' 

"  [Then  followed  an  attempt  to  write  a  name.  Probably  ten 
minutes  were  consumed  in  this  effort,  but  she  seemed  unable  to 

write  the  whole  name She  finally  spelt  it  phonetically, 

but  I ...  failed  to  recognize  what  she  was  driving  at,  and 
remained  in  utter  ignorance  until  the  next  sitting,  when  she 
was  able  to  write  the  full  name  correctly,  and  imparted  a 
bit  of  information  of  which  I  was  entirely  ignorant.  She  had 
intended  to  tell  me  the  matter,  and  about  a  month  before  her 
death  had  started  to  do  so,  but  something  had  turned  the  con- 
versation  In  attempting  to  explain  the  matter  at  her  first 

sitting,  she  referred  me  by  name  to  a  person  who  might  readily 
have  given  me  the  needed  information,  but  I  felt  unwilling  to 
discuss  the  matter.] 

" C.  H. :  'I  can't  think  what  that  means.'  D.  P.  B. :  ' Do, 
dear.  Give  it  [the  watch]  to  me  a  minute.  Oh,  how  this  helps 
me.  I  am  still  a  little  confused — fused — fused.'  [If  this  fre- 
quent sort  of  thing  is  fraud,  it  is  pretty  ingenious  fraud.  But 
how  absolutely  consistent  it  is  with  difficult  communications 
from  some  source  I  H.H.] 

"  [Then  follows  a  reference  of  an  extremely  personal  nature, 
which  afforded  me  a  strong  proof  of  personality.  It  was  per- 
fectly intelligible  at  the  time,  and  it  began  with  '  I  tell  you  this, 
but  don't  let  that  gentleman  hear  me,' — evidently  referring  to 
Pelham,  as  Hodgson  had  left  the  room — sent  out  some  time  be- 
fore by  Phinuit. — Abridged  from  original  transcript. — C.H.  '96.] 

"  D.  P.  B. :  '  Don't  feel  strange  with  me,  dear,  for  I  love  you 
and  always  did.'  C.  H. :  '  Can't  you  give  me  some  further  proof 

of  your  identity?'  D.  P.  B.:  'I  will Am  I  dreaming? 

Where  are  you  now  ? '  C.H. :  '  Right  here,  near  you.  I  wish  I 
might  see  you.'  D.  P.  B. :  '  I  will  try  to  have  you  see  me  as  I 
am.  Poor  little  boy — too  bad — yes — do  you  recall — recall — can't 
I  help  you  when  you  go  home.  I  say— don't  you  hear  me  ? '. . . 

"  [When  I  professed  ignorance  of  some  of  the  circumstances 


492  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

the  pencil  rather  impetuously  wrote  '  Don't  be  stupid/  and  then 
'  Don't  be  discouraged.'] 

"  D.  P.  B. :  '  A  . . .  is  gone  and  I  am  glad  of  it.  I  am  so  happy 
for  that.  Now  talk  to  me,  dear.  Don't  you  know  the  Sunday 
we  went  to  the  Point—'  C.  H. :  *  Point? '  D.  P.  B. :  '  Yes  [joy- 
fully]. That  is  what  I  want  to  say:  was  it  Sunday?  And  I 
remember  it  so  well.  P — oint  Pines '  [triumphantly] .  C.  H. : 
'  Oh,  the  Point  of  Pines.'  D.  P.  B. :  '  Yes.'  C.  H. :  «  And  that  is 
what  you  were  trying  to  say,  is  it  ? '  D.  P.  B. :  *  Yes,  all  the 
time.  Do  you  remember  the  little  place  where  we  sat.  I  go 
there  often,  yet  I  don't  see  you  there.'  C.  H. :  '  Well,  haven't 
you  seen  me  there  sometimes  ? '  D.  P.  B.  (joyously) :  '  Well,  I 
should  say  I  had ! '  C.  H. :  '  Oh,  I  recognize  that  expression ! 
I  know  now  that  you  are  Daisy.'  D.  P.  B. :  '  Well,  7  know  I  am 
D.' — [a  scrawl].  C.  H. :  '  Can  you  write  your  name  ? '  D.  P.  B. : 
'  Yes,  I'll  give  it  to  you — Bb-R-A-a.  [Here  the  hand  seemed 
angry  at  its  inability  to  write,  and  covers  the  paper  with  dots.] 
Over.  I  wrote  it.  I  wrote  it.  Do  read.  It  is  over  here,  turn ' 
[hand  fumbles  among  the  loose  sheets  lying  on  the  table  covered 
with  writing].  C.  H. :  'Can  you  give  me  your  middle  initial?' 
D.  P.  B.:  'Yes,  P.  D.  B. — do  read— R— no  more— A— that  is 
not '  [a  scrawl].  C.  H. :  '  Will  you  give  it  me  later  ? '  D.  P.  B. : 
'  Yes,  before  I  go  I  will  write  it  in  full.  Yes.  Now  let  me 
speak  my  mind.  Do  you  go  west  ? '  C.  H. :  '  No.  Didn't  you 
like  me  to  go  West? '  D.  P.  B. :  '  Not  a  bit.  You  know  how  I 
felt.  Don't  try  to  fool  with  me  now. . . .  You  want  me  to  speak 
natural [ly]  '  [which  was  exactly  the  wish  framed  in  my  mind], 

C.  H. :  '  You  feel  well  and  happy,  then? '    D.  P.  B. :  ' Don't  I— 
well,  I  guess!   [one  of  her  favorite  idioms].     All  burden  that 
about.' 

"  [Then  follows  some  advice  upon  a  certain  matter  which 
events  have  proven  to  be  invaluable.  Any  other  course  than  the 
one  advised  would  have  been  fatal  to  my  welfare. — C.H., 
'96.] 

"D.  P.   B.:  'Where   are  those  pants?'     C.   H.:   'Pants?' 

D.  P.  B. :  '  Yes— those  light  things.    I  did  not  like  them— too 
much  like  a  negro.'     C.  H. :  '  Negro,  is  that  ? '    D.  P.  B. :  '  Yes ' 
[joyfully  and  flourishingly]. 

"  [During  the  summer  of  1891,  the  year  before  the  death  of 
my  wife,  I  owned  a  pair  of  very  light  and  very  loud  trousers, 

which  afforded  endless  amusement  to  my  wife  and  myself 

We  called  them  my  coon  pants!  But  reminiscences  of  that  sort, 
as  may  be  imagined,  were  far  from  my  mind  during  the 
seance.] 

"  C.  H. :  '  And  you  don't  consider  yourself  dead  ? '  D.  P.  B. :  '  I 
don't  think  I  am  dead — not  much !  I  want  to  trouble  you  a  little 
while  longer.  What  about  your  hair?  Yes,  dear.'  [The  hand 
dropped  the  pencil  and  came  forward  to  my  head  and  fingered  my 
hair.]  C.  H. :  'It's  longer  than  it  was  when  you  were  here. 


Ch.  XXXII]  Mrs.  J.  E.  R.  E.  493 

That's  the  fashionable  cut  now.'  D.  P.  B. : '  Looks  well.'  C.  H. : 
'  You  like  it,  don't  you  ? '  D.  P.  B. :  '  Yes.'  C.  H. :  '  Others  do, 
too.'  D.  P.  B. :  '  I  don't  care  whether  they  do  or  not.  I  do. 
Where  is  the  cradle  ? '  C.  H. :  '  It's  in  the  baby's  room.'  D.  P. 
B. :  '  It's  where  I  can't  see  it.  I  can't  find  it.'  C.  H. :  '  If  you 

go  in  there  you  can't  fail  to  see  it [suddenly  recollecting] 

Oh,  I  know  what  you  mean ! '  D.  P.  B.  [energetically]  '  Now 
you  are  just  waking  up!' 

"  [  The  hand,  in  the  exuberance  of  its  pleasure  at  my  evidence 
of  intelligence,  swept  watch,  note  book,  loose  sheet  and  pencils 
off  the  table  on  the  floor.  After  they  were  replaced  the  writing 
continued.] 

"  D.  P.  B. : '  Too  bad.'  C.  H. : '  Oh,  that's  all  right.'  D.  P.  B. : 
-  I  know,  but  see  what  I  did.  Look  here,  do  you  remember  the 
cradle  you  never  got? '  C.  H.:  '  Yes,  and  that's  a  very  good  evi- 
dence that  Daisy  is  here.  I  remember  very  well.  And  you  re- 
member that  promised  cradle.'  D.  P.  B. :  '  Yes,  I  am  now.  Well, 
I  guess  I  do.' 

" C.  H. :  '  Will  you  be  near  me  and  help  me  in  the 

future? '  D.  P.  B. :  « Yes,  I  wilL  I  promise.  Ask  him  [G.  P.!] 
to  help  me.'  GEOBGE  [?]  :  '  Yes,  I  will '  Enter  Hodgson. 

"  HODGSON*  : '  Come,  Dr.  Phinuit,  it  is  time  to  close  the  sitting.' 
D.  P.  B.:  '  Who  are  you?'  C.  H.:  '  This  is  Mr.  Hodgson,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research.'  D.  P.  B. :  '  Do 
you  know  my  baby?  He  is  a  very  nice  boy.  You  go  and  see 
him.  He  looks  like  me.'  C.  H. :  '  Now  remember  your  promise 
to  write  your  full  name.'  D.  P.  B.:  'Yes,  D.  P.  B.  [indis- 
tinctly.] Now  D.  P.  B.  [in  startlingly  distinct  capitals]  Daisy 
—Park— Bradford.  [The  '  Park '  scrawly ;  the  '  Bradford '  very 
plainly  written].  Da  [scrawl]  Par — [oh  well,  this — me?]  For- 
give me  for  my  wrongs.'  C.  H. :  '  But  there  are  no  wrongs  to 
forgive.'  D.  P.  B. :  *  Mistakes.'  [Then,  as  if  seized  by  desire  to 
summarize  rapidly  the  proofs  of  identity,  the  hand  scrawled  in 
coarse,  hurried  letters — '  Point  of  Pines ' — '  the  Seat ' — '  Don't 
take  A.... — no' — 'My  stomach  is  better — so  is  the  baby']. 
C.  H. :  '  You  remember  what  we  dreaded  for  the  baby? '  D.  P. 
B. :  '  Well,  yes,  but  no  fear  of  them  now.  I  must  go.'  C.  H. : 
'  Good-by ! '  D.  P.  B. :  '  No,  don't  say  good-bye.'  [And  with 
this  the  sitting  terminated.]  " 

April  4th,  1894.    (Pr.XIII,510f.) 
"  Sitter:  Mrs.  J.  E.  R.  R.  (Associate  A.B.SP.R.) 

"  Mrs.  Piper  became  first  controlled  by  Dr.  Phinuit. 

"  [Spoken] :  That  lady's  a  medium.  You  have  a  very  won- 
derful light,  but  you  doubt  yourself  sometimes Do  you  know 

Robert  who  troubled  your  whole  life  ? . . .  Never  will  any  more. 
Yes,  indeed,  Robert  was  a  great  sorrow,  and  we  are  glad  to  re- 
form him  here 

"  Taken  as  a  whole  it  would  appear  that  the  effort  was  made 


494  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

by  several  of  my  nearest  relatives  to  inform  me  of  the  death  of 
the  bad  influence  of  my  life,  and  to  let  me  know  that  they  knew 
a  story  I  had  never  told  to  any  one  of  them.  I  do  not  know 
whether  R.  E.  W.  is  living  or  dead. 

"  Mrs.  R.  writes  later : — 

"DEAR  DR.  HODGSON,— What  do  you  think  of  this?  I  have 
just  received  reply  from  England  as  to  Dr.  W.,  who  you  will 
remember  George,  through  Mrs.  Piper,  said  was  '  there.'  Well, 

he  is  alive,  well,  and  stronger  than  ever 1  for  years  have  not 

thought  consciously  of  Dr.  W.  nor  cared  whether  he  lived  or 
died,  nor  have  I  borne  him  malice  for  the  trouble,  as  '  George ' 
emphasized  it,  that  his  influence  brought  into  my  young  life. 
Why  then  so  strange  a  re-awakening?  Why  so  false  a  test? . . . 

"J.E.R.K." 

Which  is  offset  by  this  (Pr.  XIII,  513)  : 

"  CARNEGIE  STUDIOS,  March  23rd  [1895]. 

"DEAR  DR.  HODGSON, — When  I  had  my  sitting  with  Mrs. 
Piper,  perhaps  you  remember  that  Phinuit  broke  off  suddenly  to 
say :  '  There's  a  little  child  coming,  it  is  still  in  the  body,  not 
born  yet.'  I  asked  if  it  was  Dr.  Moore's  baby  whose  arrival  I 
was  then  anxiously  awaiting.  Phinuit  said :  '  Yes,  but  he  is  not 
coming  to  stay, — he  is  guarded  by  a  great  spirit.'  The  baby  was 
born  a  couple  of  weeks  later,  and  died  suddenly  this  morning. 

"I  have  not  the  papers  here  but  I  think  my  recollection  is 
correct.  I  have  remembered  it  several  times  since  the  child's 
birth,  but  it  seemed  so  healthy  I  thought  it  was  all  a  mistake. 
It  may  seem  worth  while  to  note  this  without  mentioning  names. 
—Cordially  yours,  J.  E.  K.  R." 

May  26th  and  29th,  1894.     (Pr.XIII,525f.) 

"  Sitter :  Professor  C.  E.  Norton,  of  Harvard,  at  the  house  of 
Professor  W.  James. . . .  Professor  Norton  has  made  the  follow- 
ing statement: — 

" First,  that  there  was  no  question  as  to  Mrs.  Piper's 

good  faith,  or  as  to  her  delusion  in  respect  to  the  nature  of  the 
influences  to  which  she  was  subject  when  in  the  trance  state. 
[She  herself  had  no  opinion.  H.H.] 

"  Her  conditions  seemed  to  me  analogous  to  those  of  an  ill 
person  dreaming  a  suggested  dream,  in  which  trains  of  dream 
to  which  the  dreamer  has  been  accustomed  are  modified  by  the 
special  conditions  of  the  moment 

"  There  was  no  evidence  of  acquaintance  with  any  facts  known 
only  to  myself,  or  which  were  remote  and  obscure 

"  As  to  the  origin  of  many  of  the  phantasmagorias  of  her 
trance  dreams,  I  formed  a  very  distinct  opinion,  but  many  ex- 
periments would  be  required  to  test  its  correctness,  and  these  I 
shall  never  make." 


Ch.  XXXII]  Remarkable  Telopses  495 

If  the  following  was  simply  Mrs.  Piper's  telopsis  of  a  lady 
with  sore  eyes,  what  was  the  reason  for  sending  any  "  love  " 
and  giving  the  husband's  initial?  (Pr.  XIII,  528)  : 

"  Dr.  K on  May  16th,  1896 . . .  made  the  following  state- 
ment in  the  course  of  a  letter  in  reply  to  my  [Hodgson's.  H.H.] 
inquiry  on  another  matter. 

" I  receired  from  Mrs.  P.  a  few  words  of  communica- 
tion from  someone  who  claimed  to  be  my  Uncle  G '  Give  my 

love  to  L.  and  tell  her  I  see  the  trouble  with  her  eyes.'  L.  is  the 

initial  of  my  uncle's  widow I  had  but  just  returned  from  a 

year's  trip  abroad,  and  I  knew  nothing  about  my  Aunt  L 

Later,  when  I  reached  my  home,  I  found  out  that  my  aunt  had 
been  for  some  little  time  under  treatment  for  some  trouble  with 
her  eyes." 

About  November  BOth,  1895.    (Pr.Xni,534-5.) 

"  Sitter :  Professor  Herbert  Nichols. 

"  The  following  account,  undated,  was  forwarded  to  me  [Hodg- 
son] by  Professor  James,  to  whom  it  was  sent. 

"  [Received  by  R.  H.  December  24M,  1895.] 

"  Just  before  coming  away  I  had  a  wonderful  sitting  with 
Mrs.  Piper.  As  you  know,  I  have  been  a  Laodicean  toward  her 
heretofore.  But  that  she  is  no  fraud,  and  that  she  is  the  greatest 
marvel  I  have  ever  met  I  am  now  wholly  convinced.  Think  my 
interview  more  wonderful  than  any  I  have  ever  heard  reported 
of  her  before 

"  Mamma  and  I  one  Christmas  exchanged  rings.  Each  had 
engraved  in  his  gift  the  first  word  of  his  favorite  proverb.  The 
ring  given  me  I  lost  many  years  ago.  When  Mamma  died  a 
year  ago,  the  ring  I  had  given  her  was,  at  her  request,  taken 
from  her  finger  and  sent  to  me.  Now  I  asked  Mrs.  Piper  '  What 
was  written  in  Mamma's  ring?'  and  as  I  asked  the  question  I 
held  the  ring  in  my  hand  and  had  in  mind  only  that  ring.  But 
I  had  hardly  got  the  words  from  my  mouth  till  she  slapped  down 
on  the  paper  the  word  in  the  other  ring" 


CHAPTEE  XXXIII 
HODGSON'S  SECOND  PIPER  REPORT,  1892-5  (Continued) 

HI.  The  Thaw  Sittings 

THE  sittings  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Thaw  are  much  like  those  of 
Mrs.  Sutton.  They  had  lost  twin  children,  Margaret,  aged 
six  months,  a  year  before  the  sittings  began,  and  Ruth,  fifteen 
months  old,  three  months  before.  Much  of  the  baby  talk 
alleged  to  come  from  Ruth  was  natural  to  her  age  at  death. 
Of  course  none  of  Margaret's  could  have  been  natural  at  six 
months;  and  at  the  sittings  much  talk  was  ascribed  to  both 
that  would  have  been  impossible  to  children  at  eighteen 
months,  their  putative  age  at  the  time  of  the  sittings.  More- 
over, in  the  report  of  the  sitting  of  March  12th  it  is  definitely 
stated  that  the  last  one  who  died  had  only  six  words  at  the 
time  of  death  three  or  four  months  before.  The  increase  of 
vocabulary  in  that  time  seems  to  indicate  a  rate  of  develop- 
ment unknown  in  earthly  conditions,  or  additions  in  Phinuit's, 
or  Mrs.  Piper's,  impersonations.  Yet  the  impersonations  are 
too  good  and  contain  too  much  superusual  knowledge  to  be 
merely  faked.  The  whole  thing  is  a  puzzle. 

Dr.  and  Mrs.  Thaw  are  both  of  the  mediumistic  tempera- 
ment, if  that  term  may  be  provisionally  allowed,  and  the  sit- 
tings are  among  the  most  successful  on  record.  Mrs.  Thaw 
has  told  me  of  hearing  the  tappings  about  her  bed  which  are 
alluded  to  in  the  sittings. 

Hodgson  says  (Pr.  XIII,  536-7) : 

"The  record  of  one  sitting... is  omitted  altogether,  at  the 
request  of  the  sitter,  as  being  too  intimately  personal,  and  con- 
taining much  very  private  matter  concerning  the  deceased.  [As 
already  suggested,  perhaps  unnecessarily  often,  this  is  inevitable, 
and  most  regrettably  the  case  with  the  best  evidence.  H.H.]  . . . 
The  records  should  be  read  in  detail  to  be  appreciated,  as  the 
form  in  which  the  information  is  given  is  in  most  cases  not  less 
important  than  the  matter." 

496 


Ch.  XXXIII]  The  Thaw  Babies  497 

Unfortunately  space  imposes  a  most  difficult  choice  between 
the  full  presentation  of  a  narrow  variety  of  sittings  or  a 
scanter  presentation  of  a  greater  variety.  I,  of  course,  have 
tried  to  go  in  medio:  no  pun  intended. 

The  notes  in  brackets  are  by  Dr.  Thaw,  except  where  they 
bear  my  initials. 

I  have  peppered  more  than  my  usual  proportion  of  com- 
ments through  these  sittings.  I  hope  they  will  be  less  of  a 
nuisance  than  a  help. 

First  Sitting.  February  14th,  1892.  Present,  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
A.  B.  Thaw,  and  Mrs.  Holmes.  (Pr.XIII,537f.) 

" £1.1  A  little  child  comes  here  to  gentleman.  Puts 

hand  on  his  head.  [Child  always  did  so.]  Light  golden  hair. 
[Correct.]  [Dr.  T.  has  hair  in  pocket;  stands  ten  feet  away.] 
Little  boy.  [Child  was  very  generally  mistaken  for  boy.] 

"  Phinuit  [in  a  child's  voice,  for  '  R '  [Ruth,  the  baby.  H.H.]  : 
'  Tell  mamma  not  to  trouble  so.  [Here,  and  at  times  later,  there 
seemed  to  be  great  physical  distress  and  pain  in  abdomen,  throat 
and  head.]  It  pains  me  so  here.  [Hands  on  abdomen.]  [Cor- 
rect. Child  had  dysentery,  with  sore  throat.]  My  throat  hurts. 
The  powder  I  Take  it  away.  I  don't  like  it.  Take  it  away.' 
[Bismuth  was  given  through  entire  illness  of  two  weeks,  and 
was  always  given  with  trouble.]  " 

Did  the  child's  suffering  continue,  or  would  a  child  do  this 
and  what  follows  for  evidential  purposes?  It  may  be  worth 
while  to  repeat  that  "spirits"  often  declare  that  those  in 
their  world  are  freed  from  their  earthly  pains,  but  they  also 
give  indications  of  suffering  pain  as  here.  Some  of  them  have 
said  they  did  it  for  evidential  purposes. 

"  Phinuit :  '  Curly  golden  hair.'  [Hair  was  very  curly.]  Phi- 
nuit [for  R]  :  '  I  am  not  dead.  I  am  not  dead.  I  am  not  dead.' 
Phinuit:  'My  head  aches  so!  [To  Mrs.  H.]  Sis!  Put  your 
hand  on  my  head.  Throat  so  bad!  Hurt  so!'  [Pause.]  Phi- 
nuit [for  R.] :  '  I  can't  tell  why  mamma  don't  speak  to  me ! 
Don't  put  it  in  the  bottle.  Take  it  away.'  Phinuit:  'Little 
girl!  Long  light  hair.  Eh— Eh— Eth— Ethie,  Ethie,  Ethie. 
[Changing  sound  of  E.]  She's  trying  to  tell  me.  Net- tie. 
Ne-thie.  [This  appears  to  be  feeling  for  the  name  Ruthie.  See 
below.  H.H.]  Can't  get  it.  There's  something  the  matter.  This 
little  child  hasn't  learned  to  talk.'  [Correct,  except  for  a  few 
words  which  were  mentioned  at  later  sittings.]  " 

And  yet  she  did  talk  very  precociously,  or  Phinuit  talked 
for  her,  before  and  after  this. 


498  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

"  [2.]  Phinuit  [for  K.] :  '  Take  me  up  in  your  arms !  The 
stars!  Stars!  When  I  saw  the  stars,  then  I  knew  I  wouldn't 
stay.  [A  good  deal  for  a  child  of  fifteen  months  to  know.  H.H.] 
The  book!  I  want  the  book.  The  book!  I  want  mamma  to 
speak  to  me.  I  am  trying  to  reach  my  mamma.'  [Phinuit  has 
pains  or  distress  here.]  Phinuit :  '  Never  saw  anyone  so  anxious 
to  come.  Trying  to  get  through  the  veil.  But  can't  do  it.' 
[Some  mumbling  here.]  Phinuit  [for  R.]  :  '  I've  come  such  a 
long  way  to  speak  to  you,  mamma.  They  took  all  my  things  and 
put  them  in  the  box.  [Correct.]  I  didn't  like  that.  Oh,  dear ! 
There's  papa  too.'  ^Phinuit:  '  This  is  dreadful.  This  little  girl 
will  take  me  out  with  her.  She's  tearing  me  to  pieces.  [Great 
pain  apparently.]  See  the  little  curls!  Ethie!  Ethie!  Oh, 
dear!  Oh,  dear!  [More  suffering.]  What  do  I  see?  I  don't 
want  Harry.  [To  Mrs.  H.]  [Pause.]  Here  come  two !  Baby 
and  little  girl.  [Correct.]  She's  gone  to  get  baby.'  Phinuit 
[for  R.]  :  '  She's  here,  too.  And  I'm  not  sorry.'  Phinuit :  '  Ellie 
—Ethie.  [We  tell  Phinuit  that  the  first  letter  of  the  name  is  R.] 
These  children  are  crazy,  trying  to  get  to  you.  To  reach  through 
the  veil.'  Phinuit  [for  R.]  :  '  I've  been  to  you  once.  [About  six 
weeks  after  the  death,  Mrs.  T.  woke  one  night  and  heard  a  noise 
like  light  rapping  on  the  foot  of  the  bed,  which  lasted  for  several 
minutes.  She  told  me  about  it  in  the  morning.]  I'll  come  again 
often.  Some  time  you'll  see  me.  See  papa  writing.  Tell  papa 
to  go  home  and  think  about  it.  [Eighteen  months  old  child! 
They  develop  fast  "  there  " !  H.H.]  Tell  papa  I'll  come  to  him, 
too.  I'll  touch  him.'  Phinuit :  '  Ret-tie.  Ret-thie.  [Phinuit  is 
given  watch  and  chain  that  belonged  to  Dr.  T.'s  mother,  who 
died  thirty  years  before.]  Here  comes  a  lady.  Grandma !  She's 
here,  too,  with  children.  Grandpa  in  the  body.  [Mrs.  T.'s 
father  is  living.]  Never  saw  such  a  trouble  to  reach  anybody. 
[Another  pause.]  . . .  Oh,  dear !  In  the  body.  Another  one,  to 
be.  Coming  to  stay  with  you.  [See  later  in  this  sitting.]  I've 
got  something  the  matter  with  my  teeth.  [Baby  was  teething 
when  she  died.]  . . .  Take  me  in  your  arms,  mamma.  [Suddenly.] 
And  there's  my  picture!  [Mrs.  T.  was  painting  a  picture  of 
Ruthie  when  she  was  taken  ill.]  It's  good.  It  was  the  last 
chance.  I  watched  it  every  day.  And  you  never  did  better.'  [A 
very  precocious  connoisseur !  H.H.]  . . .  Phinuit : '  Who's  mother  ? 
Grandma.  Hear  the  little  one  call  Grandma.' " 

If  she  was  still  "the  little  one,"  in  comparison  with  her 
sister  she  had  not  been  growing;  they  were  twins. 

"  Phinuit  [for  R.]  : '  Tell  papa  to  think  it  over,  and  when  alone 
I'll  come  again.'  [And  neither  at  eighteen  months  could  natu- 
rally have  said  this.  H.H.]  . . .  Phinuit  [impressively]  :  *  Friends, 
let  me  speak  a  word  to  you.  Let  me  tell  you  there  will  be  an- 
other that  will  stay.  [Mrs.  T.  asks  if  there  are  any  more.]  One 


Ch.  XXXIII]          Some  Older  Friends  499 

now.  Only  one.'  Mrs.  T.:  (Will  she  stay?)  Phinuit:  'She 
will  stay.  One  more !  [Mrs.  H.  asks,  *  Boy  or  girl  ? ']  Phinuit : 
'  I'm  a  little  boy.  Three  sisters !  Two  to  stay  and  two  to  go, 
but  not  to  die  1 '  [Pause.]  [Mrs.  T.  has  since  had  two  children, 
both  girls,  born  one  in  October  1893,  the  other  in  September, 
1895]  . . .  Phinuit  [for  R.]  :  '  Speak  to  me,  mamma !  Speak  to 
me.  I  want  to  stay.  Can't  you  think  I'm  here?  Tell  papa. 
[Watch  is  given  again.]  Watch.  Grandma's.  Put  Sis's  hand 
on  my  head.  [Short  pause.]  Ruth!  Two  Ruths!  Two  of 
them.  Mammavs  grandma.'  [Correct.]  . . .  Phinuit  [for  R.]  : 
'  Great  grandma.  My  namesake ' " 

Do  children  of  eighteen  months  know  about  great-grand- 
parents and  namesakes?  Much  of  this  is  telepathy,  but  how 
about  the  dramatic  quality? 

"  Phinuit  [Loud]  : '  Friend !  H  O  W  A  —  He's  talking  to  me. 
I  hear  him  whisper.  He's  coming  nearer.'  [Phinuit  here  gives 
a  nickname  for  a  friend  recently  dead.  Nickname  not  known  to 
anyone  present.  On  inquiry  his  widow  said  it  was  the  name 
commonly  used  by  his  mother  and  sisters,  all  dead,  but  not  used 
by  anyone  living.  A.  B.  Thaw.]  [Compare  with  Mrs.  Speer's 
case.  p.  354.  H.H.] 

"  [3.1  H .  H .    [Giving  name  of  friend.] 

"(Mrs.  T.:  Does  he  know  the  babies?)  Phinuit  [speaking 
softly  and  with  feeling]  :  '  Quite  well,  quite  well.'  [True.]  " 

Second  Sitting.    February  21th,  1892.    (Pr.XIII,541f.) 
"  [R.  Hodgson  and  Miss  R.  have  first  part  of  sitting;  those 
present  at  last  half  are  Dr.  and  Mrs.  A.  B.  Thaw  and  Mrs. 
Thaw's  brother,  Mr.  A.  Dow,  who  writes  shorthand.] 

" Phinuit :  '  Come  here,  little  girl,  come  here.    Tells  me 

to  pat  you  on  the  head.  [To  Dr.  T.]  That's  it.  She  talks  very 
sweetly  and  very  softly.  She  comes  here  and  says  that — Who  is 
B—Berthie— Bertie— B-E-A-R-T-A-I-C-E.  [Living  child  Bea- 
trice— her  own  pronunciation.]  Ruth,  Ruthie — Ruthie  here — 
This  little  girl... she  has  brought  another  little  girl.  Little 
Marjery — Marjaret.  You  speak  to  papa  too.' " 

A  good  deal  to  ask  of  a  six  months'  baby;  and  Phinuit 
always  insists  that  she's  "  the  little  one  "  as  compared  with  her 
twin  Ruth.  He  also  often  represents  her  as  walking. 

" ' Here  comes  a  lady  to  you.    You  have  got  her  picture 

— a  very  large  picture  of  her.  [Correct  of  Dr.  T.'s  mother.] 
And  she  has  come.  She  is  attracted  by  the  influence  in  the  body. 
I  will  awaken  her  in  a  minute.  Don't  hurry  me,  please.  The 
children  don't  like  to  be  sent  away.  The  little  one  is  gone. 
Little  Ruth  is  here  with  me,  with  little  light  curls  all  over  her 
head.  [To  Dr.  T.]  She  makes  me  pat  your  head.  But  two  will 


500  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Ft.  IV 

stay.  Little  Betty  is  going  to  stay  in  the  body  with  you.  And 
there  is  going  to  be  one  more  that  is  going  to  stay.  There 
will  be  two  with  you  and  two  of  us  here.  I  can't  quite' — 
[Broken.] " 

"[To  Dr.  T.]    '  This  is  your  mother.    This  is  her  watch.    She 

says,  '•  Tell  W [Dr.  T.'s  father]  that  the  baby  is  all  right." 

[Mother  died  in  premature  childbirth,  but  father  was  also  dead  at 
the  time  of  the  sitting.]  [Why  didn't  she  meet  him  then,  in- 
stead of  sending  a  message  ?  H.H.]  [But  Dr.  Thaw's  then  living 

brother  was  also  named  W .     See  below. — R.H.]     I  don't 

know  what  that  means. . . .'  (Dr.  T. :  Are  you  all  happy  there  ?) 
E. :  'I  am  very  happy.  Oh,  if  you  will  only  believe  there  is  no 
death !  I  live  and  love  you.  Don't  let  these  little  things  worry 
you.  It  grieves  me.  Will  you  cherish  me  in  your  memory  as 
you  always  did,  and  think  of  me  as  I  am  ?  Watching  over  you. 
[To  Mrs.  T.]  This  dear  little  woman.  [Placing  hands  on  heads 

of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  T.]    Who  is  L ?    I  don't  know.    I  only  love 

you.  I  will  stay  with  you.'  R.  [Baby  Ruth.  H.H.] :  '  Speak  to 
me.  Tell  Betty  [living  sister.  H.H.]  I  love  her.'  (Mrs.  T.: 
How  does  Margaret  look?)  Phinuit:  'The  dear  little  thing- 
dear  little  thing.  There,  pat  her,  and  papa,  we  love.'  M. :  'He 
used  to  take  me  on  his  arm.  I  see  him.  He  can  take  me  no 
more  in  the  body,  but  in  the  spirit,  if  he  will.  You  have  carried 
me,  you  have  seen  me.  You  will  see  me  again.  Truly,  truly, 
truly!'  (Mrs.  T.:  What  can  we  do  to  see  you?)  'Mamma, 
dear!  Mamma,  dear!  We'll  be  with  you.  Do  nothing.  Be 
patient.  When  your  pillow  is  wet,  I  cannot  rest.  When  you 
are  cheerful,  I  am  happy.  Don't  cry. — In  the  body.  Dry  away 
those  tears,  and  don't  fret.  That's  all  right.'  " 

As  said  at  the  outset  regarding  the  vocabularies  of  the 
children,  this  advice  from  a  child  of  six  months  is  of  course 
highly  incongruous,  and  suggests  either  manufacture  on  the 
part  of  Phinuit  (whatever  that  may  mean)  or  developments 
much  more  rapid  in  the  other  life  than  in  this  one, — or  dreams 
with  their  mixture  of  true  and  false. 

Third  sitting.    March  Vtth,  1892.    (Pr.XIII,545f.) 
"  [Dr.  and  Mrs.  Thaw.  Mr.  Alexander  Dow  writing  shorthand.] 

" '  Here's  the  baby.    Oh !    I'm  so  fond  of  this  little  one. 

She  wants  me  to  tell  you  she's  not  afraid  of  me  any  more.  She 
knows  I  talked  to  you  in  the  body.  You  know  what  I  mean? 
I  explained  it  to  Ruthie.'  (Mrs.  T.:  Little  Ruthie!)  Phi- 
nuit :  '  The  little  baby  is  Margaret.  She  is  very  delighted.  She 
wants  a  posie — give  her  some  posies.  [Mrs.  T.  had  brought 
some  little  flowers  for  the  babies,  at  this  time  on  the  table  in 
paper.]  Posie,  posie, — give  one  posie.  [Taking  flowers  and  sep- 


Ch.  XXXIII]       The  Thaw  Babies  Again  501 

'arating  them.]  That's  for  the  little  one.'  (Mrs.  T.:  I  brought 
them  for  the  little  ones.)  Phinuit:  'That's  for  the  little  one. 
She  wants  some  for  the  other  one — just  two  or  three.  You  don't 
know  how  the  little  one  can  speak  now.  [But  if  she  had  been 
growing  so  as  to  speak,  how  was  she  still  "  the  little  one "  ? 
Very  possibly  an  entirely  genuine  dream.  Perhaps  pp.  428-9 
may  have  some  interest  in  this  connection.  H.H.]  You  know 
she  takes  the  spirit  of  these  things — the  spiritual  thing — and  the 
spirit  part  is  just  as  real  to  her  as  your  life  is  to  you.'  M. : 
'Come  to  me,  Mamma.'  (Mrs.  T.:  If  I  might  see  her!) 
Phinuit:  'What  a  bright  facel  She  has  grayish  blue  eyes — 
large,  full  and  pretty.  I  call  them  blue,  a  grayish  blue.  What  a 
Tery  bright  and  pretty  little  mouth  she  hasl  [Correct  descrip- 
tion of  M.]  She  loves  you  both.  Do  you  know,  I  can  get  more 
from  the  children  than  I  can  from  the  old  ones,  because  there  is 
such  a  strong  tie  between  you.  [Has  often  been  noted.  H.H.]  . . . 
She  wants  me  to  separate  the  posies  and  give  some  to  the  other 
baby.  I  will  give  her  so  many  [separating  flowers],  and  that  one 
will  have  so  many.  Just  the  same  for  each  little  one.'  R. : 
'Pretty,  pretty,  pretty,  pretty.  Where's  the  little  blue  flowers? 
Pretty,  pretty,  pretty.'  Phinuit:  'Oh!  That's  a  pretty  baby- 
Ruth— Pretty,  pretty,  pretty.  Do  you  love  the  babies  ? '  (Dr.  T. : 
What  do  you  think,  Dr.?)  Phinuit:  'She  says  that.  Baby, 
baby,  babie.  This  little  one  says — Pretty,  pretty,  pretty,  pretty, 
pretty.  BABY — Can  you  hear  her  speak?  Do  you  hear  her 
speak  ?  Bettie— Bettie— Bettie— she  keeps  calling  Bettie.  Give 
me  the  little  toy  thing.  I  like  that — it  refreshes  her.  I  never 
saw  two  brighter  children.  You  know  they  have  no  more  pain 
in  the  stomach.'  (Dr.  T. :  Doctor,  don't  they  ever  suffer  in  the 
spirit  body  ?)  Phinuit :  '  No  more  pain — no  pain.'  (Dr.  T. : 
Do  they  grow  up  as  we  do  here?)  Phinuit:  'In  just  the  same 
number  of  years,  but  in  this  world  there  is  no  time.  Life  goes 
on  forever.  That  is,  there  is  no  death.  I  tell  you,  friends,  just 
as  sure  as  you  live  in  the  body,  I  lived  once  in  the  body.  I  lived 
in  Germany  and  Paris  and  Marseilles.  I  know  if  those  cranks 
weren't  so  stupid  they  could  find  me.  [Referring  to  efforts  on 
the  part  of  the  S.P.R.  to  find  out  about  him.]  Well!  I  hear 
Baby,  calling  baby,  baby,  baby.'  [All  these  words— baby— pretty 
— Bettie — were  given  with  just  the  accent  Ruth  gave  when  she 
was  alive.  Pretty  was  one  of  the  first  words,  and  she  said  it 
constantly  about  anything  she  liked.  These  were  the  only  words, 
except  Mamma  and  Papa  and  pussie.]  " 

Mrs.  Thaw  told  me  that  the  absolute  resemblance  between 
these  ejaculations  and  those  of  her  child  while  living  con- 
vinced her  that  they  were  made  by  the  child's  surviving  spirit. 
But  here  is  the  constantly  recurring  fact  that  the  little  one 
seems  to  have  got  a  suspiciously  large  vocabulary  in  the  few 


502  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

months  since  her  death — one  perhaps  as  full  as  Mrs.  Piper's. 
And  yet  similar  things  constantly  happen  in  dreams,  and 
some  dreams  contain  truth. 

"  Phinuit :  '  Do  you  know  she  takes  your  hand  and  pats  it  like 
that  [patting  Mrs.  T.'s  hand]  like  that.  You  will  see  her  just 
as  sure  as  you  live.  The  veil  will  be  lifted  so  you  can  see  these 
two  little  ones  when  you  are  partially  dreaming.  It  will  not  be 

a  dream.  It  will  be  real [Pointing  to  Dr.  and  Mrs.  T.'s 

foreheads.]  I  see  a  great  big  light.  What  is  that  light  ?  What 
is  that  light  here?  [The  mediumistic  nature  of  the  sitters? 
H.H.]  You,  friends,  are  going  to  make  a  change  in  your  life. 
It  is  going  to  be  the  best  change  you  can  make.  The  baby 
speaks  to  me.  [Very  precocious  intelligence  from  a  child! 
Dream  mixture  again,  but  apparently  veridical  and  prophetic, 
though  possibly  only  telepathic !  H.H.]  It's  in  a  different  street 
— a  different  place  entirely.  It's  a  pretty  place.  I  see  the 
change.  I  see  all  the  little  details.  I  see  it  in  detail,  that  I  can't 
describe.  [All  correct.] 

"'Who  is  that  lady  that  is  with  you?  No,  the  stout  lady. 
[Not  stout.]  She  is  very  good  to  your  little  girl.  [The  living 
one.  H.H.]  . . .  She  has  care  of  the  little  ones,  and  is  cranky 
sometimes.'  (Mrs.  T. :  Do  the  babies  remember  her?)  [She  was 
the  nurse  who  had  charge  of  them  all  their  lives.]  Phinuit: 
'  The  little  ones,  the  babies  in  the  spirit  world,  remember  her 

very  well Who's  M J ?  Your  mother  told  me  to  tell 

you.'  [All  correct.  Aunt  of  Dr.  T.]  (Dr.  T.:  Is  she  happy 
now  ?)  Phinuit :  '  She  remembers  you  when  you  were  a  little 
fellow.  She  was  with  you  when  your  mother  come  out  of  the 
body.'  [Correct.]" 

"  Come  " — not  "  went " — is  very  dramatic,  as  coming  from 
Phinuit's  side ;  and  the  bad  grammar  was  not  telepathed  from 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Thaw. 

« '  AH—  Who  is  Ellie?  Who  is  Nellie?  The  baby  calls  that 
— she  calls  her  Nellie.  [Nurse  spoken  of  before.]  Nellie! 
That's  a  good  memory  for  the  little  one,  isn't  it?  Such  pretty 
light  curls !  All  over  her  head.  Just  as  perfect  a  little  girl  as 
can  be ! ...  You  will  see  her  in  the  new  house.  She  wants  me  to 
go  there  for  you.  She  says  there  is  going  to  be  a  better  change 
for  you.  It's  going  to  be  near  the  corner  [correct  of  new  house], 
and  you  will  go  up  to  the  upper  room,  up  one  flight  front,  and 
in  that  room  you  will  see  the  babies  come  to  you.  This  is  a  kind 
of — what  do  you  call  it?  A  sitting  place.  You  will  get  the 
babies  there.  You  stay  there  some  twilight  evening.  They  will 
come  to  you.  You  will  hear  some  patter,  patter  of  the  little 
ones,  and  soon  you  will  realize  they  are  with  you.  I  shouldn't 
be  surprised  if  you  saw — '" 


Ch.  XXXIII]  Phinuit  Moralizes  and  Felicitates  Himself  503 

Mrs.  Thaw  tells  me  she  often  heard  the  "  patter,  patter," 
but  never  saw. 

"  '  How  funny  your  mother  wears  her  hair!  [Smoothing  hair 
as  Dr.  T.'s  mother  always  wore  it.]  Wears  it  so  funny.  She's 
the  picture  of  modesty;  she's  the  most  modest  looking  woman 
you  ever  saw !  You  know  that  what  you  call  death  in  the  body 
is  natural.  You  know  that  it  is  hard,  particularly  when  those 
you  love  pass  over  behind  the  veil.  But  they  are  far  more  happy 
behind  the  veil  than  in  the  body.  For  it  is  God's  will  to  take 
them,  as  they  hare  lived.  We  tell  you  of  these  things,  because 
it  is  right  for  you  to  know,  and  the  instrument  like  the  one  I 
have  here  [i.e.,  the  medium.  H.H.]  is  to  use  to  explain  what  we 
are  in  the  spirit.  But  sometimes  it  is  very  hard  to  get  the  in- 
fluences straight,  and  I  tell  you  everything  I  can,  and  even  then 

it  is  hard  for  everyone Look  on  it  right.    Don't  let  it  worry 

you  and  affect  your  health.  Little  woman,  keep  straight.  Don't 
be  too  much  exercised,  and  keep  perfectly  cool.  You  will  get  all 
you  want.  It  will  be  a  help  to  you  in  the  body.  When  you  meet 
a  friend  and  you  want  them  to  know  your  experience,  you  can 
explain  it  to  them  with  perfect  reason.  Go  on  with  your  own 
experience.  If  they  do  not  wish  to  listen  to  you  do  not  bother 
them.  Your  mother  is  guiding  me  every  minute.' " 

Few  people  could  stand  this  free  communication  (if  com- 
munication it  be)  or  want  it.  Some  people  stop  it,  as  already 
indicated,  by  willing  the  medium  to  cease,  which  the  medium 
seems  always  to  do  readily. 

"  '  But  here's — well,  wait  a  minute — Annie — Annie — no,  Anna 
Eliza.  That's  the  name.  Comes.  Anna  Eliza.  That's  the 
mother,  Eliza.  Anna  Eliza.  I  hear  it.  [Mrs.  T.'s  dead  aunt. 
She  was  called  Aunt  Eliza,  and  it  was  unknown  to  us  at  the 
time  that  she  had  a  first  name  Anna.]  . . .  They  tell  me  I  am 
smart  enough  to  hear  this  all  right.  [Dr.  T.  offers  suggestion.] 
I  don't  want  any  of  your  help,  Ellen.  [To  A.  D.]  What  the 
dickens  is  your  name ?  A-l  '—[Laughs.]  (Dr.  T. :  What  is  it?) 
Phinuit :  '  I  know.  I  know  what  it  is.'  [Laughs.]  (Dr.  T. : 
Well,  tell  us  what  it  is.)  Phinuit:  '  Oh,  no.  I  know  what  it  is 
just  the  same.'  (Dr.  T.:  Tell  us.)  Phinuit:  'Well,  it's  a 
great  long  name,  and  it  ends  with  e-r.'  (Dr.  T.:  Good  guess, 
Doctor!)  Phinuit:  'Oh,  I  am  guessing,  am  I?  What  a  good 
fellow  I  am  to  guess!  [Spells.]  Al-e-x-a-n-d-e-r.  How  do  you 
like  that?  You  can  call  that  what  you  like.  You  can  give  it  a 
name.  [Is  this  telepathy,  or  is  Phinuit  one  of  the  best  dramatic 
characters  ever  drawn  ?  If  he  is,  who  drew  him  ?  Apparently  it 
was  not  in  Mrs.  Piper's  power  to  do  it.  H.H.]  Do  you  know,  if 
it  hadn't  been  for  your  little  girl  I  never  should  have  found  it 
out.  The  little  curly  headed  one.  She  tried  to  spell  it  for  me 


504  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

but  couldn't.  [Children  of  eighteen  months  don't  "  try  to  spell " 
often  in  this  world!  H.H.]  She  told  your  sister  [pointing  to 
Mrs.  T.J,  and  she  asked  this  lady— the  lady  the  little  one  went 
to  find — [Dr.  T.'s  mother  in  first  sitting],  and  she  tells  her,  and 
then  she  came  and  spelled  it  for  me.  Grace  is  with  your  little 
ones,  and  she  makes  me  put  your  hand  up  there  so — and  she 
wants  to  be  remembered  to  her  papa  in  the  body.  [All  true.] 

Who's  L ?    [Spelling  diminutive.]    Your  mother  just  called 

that  to  me.     She  comes  closer — closer.     She  wants  you  to  tell 

I-d-a— it  sounds  like  thai— I-d-a.     Oh!     L !'     [Dr.  T.'s 

sister's  usual  name.]  " 

Fourth  sitting.    March  18th,  1892.     (Pr.XIII,553f.) 
"  [Mr.  Perkins  sitting.     Mr.  A.  Dow  writing.     Mrs.  Thaw 
in  back  part  of  room.] 

" Phinuit  to  Mr.  D. :  '  Aleck,  you  pay  more  attention  to 

me  and  stop  your  writing.'  [He  was  taking  notes.  H.H.]  . . . 
(Mr.  P.:  What  hour  was  I  born?)  Phinuit  [counting]:  <Un, 
deux,  trois,  quatre  [up  to  ten].  Oh,  you  were  born  at  two  o'clock. 
We  begin  at  one,  that's  dark;  then  two.'  [After  some  confusion, 
not  understanding  whether  night  or  day,  decides  at  two  at 
night.]  (Mr.  P.:  Father  thought  it  was  eleven.)  Phinuit: 
'  Your  mother  tells  me  you  were  born  at  two,  and  she  was  there 
then  and  ought  to  know.  If  your  father  says  you  were  born  at 
eleven  he  makes  a  mistake,  that's  all  there  is  about  it.' " 

Here  is  a  remarkably  dramatic  passage.  I  do  not  mean 
melodramatic,  but  merely  lifelike — the  sort  of  thing  not  easy 
to  invent. 

" He  says  something  about  Bawldin— Baldwin.    I  don't 

know  how  you  pronounce  it.  You  know  who  he  is?  Well,  he 
sends  love  to  you,  and  says  that  you  kind  of  misunderstood  him, 
and  it  was  too  bad.  You  can  make  it  all  right  now.  And  he 
says  '  Tell  George  he  is  a  good  fellow,  but  he  didn't  understand 
me;  you  must  say  so.'  [Mr.  P.  and  friend  B.  had  misunder- 
standing for  several  months  before  B's  death.]  . . .  There's  some- 
one calling  who  speaks  in  a  whisper.  George  will  tell  you 
something.  [This  friend's  name,  George  Baldwin.]  (Mr.  P.: 
Well,  I'll  listen.)  Phinuit:  '  Ask  Fred.  He's  there  with  you; 
tell  him  I'm  all  right.  [Verified  afterwards.  Fred,  an  intimate 
friend  of  G.  B.]  It  was  a  cough  that  took  me  off,  consumption, 
for  I  passed  out  with  it  [True]  and  you  fellows  were  good  to 
me,  but  you  never  quite  understood  me;  you  never  did,  quite. 
I ...  taught  in  the  school [G.  B.  taught  in  preparatory  de- 
partment of  same  school.]  . . .  It's  not  long  since  I  came  here. 
I'm  so  glad  to  see  you.  Look  here!  I  want  to  talk  to  you.  I 
tell  you  there's  only  a  veil  between  us.  There's  a  good  time  for 
you  boys ...  I  don't  see  you  come  here  for  a  long  time.  I  hope 
one  of  you  will  drop  round  and  see  me  sometimes  [i.e.,  through 


Ch.  XXXIII]  Older  Friends  Again.   Phinuit  Prophesies  505 

the  medium.  H.H.]  I  didn't  think  I  was  coming  here — but 
woke  up.  I  choked  at  first,  but  I'm  better  now.  You  wouldn't 
go  to  sleep  if  you  had  seen  me  when  I  first  waked  up.  I  didn't 
think  I  was  going  to  wake  up  like  this.  You  haven't  got  all 
your  wits  about  you  yet,  and  so  you  don't  recognize  your  friends. 
I'll  be  with  you;  I'll  help  you  out  in  all  your  little  difficulties. 
I'll  be  with  you.  I  mean  well.'  (Mr.  P.:  Will  you  tell  me 
about  them  ?  There's  one  that  passed  out  after  you  did.)  Phi- 
nuit:  '  This  one  talks  in  a  whisper  to  me.  Good  fellow,  mean* 
well.  What  a  funny  nose  he  has.  He  looks  as  if  his  nose 
turned  up  a  little.  You  know  what  I  mean.'  [Correct.]  " 

Could  anything  be  more  absurd  than  the  supposition  that 
Mrs.  Piper  "got  up"  all  this? 

" [Mrs.  T.  gives  mother's  glove  again]  . . . '  She's  nearer 

to  you  [pointing  to  Mr.  D.,  then  to  Mrs.  T.]  I  can't  make  out 
which  one  she's  more  with,  but  she's  nearer  one  of  you.'  (Mrs. 
T. :  She's  living  with  me  now.)  Phinuit :  '  Oh,  you  live  in  one 
home,  but  I  see  the  other  in  another  home,  and  she  lives  with 
you  [pointing  to  Mrs.  T.]  [Pointing  to  Mr.  D.]  She's  very 
fond  of  you.'  (Mrs.  T. :  Yes,  he's  better  than  I  am.)  Phinuit : 
'  What  nonsense,  he  isn't  better  than  you,  don't  be  jealous.' 
(Mrs.  T.:  I'm  not  jealous.)  Phinuit  [nibbing  Mrs.  T.'s  head]  : 
'  No,  and  you  are  not  going  to  begin  in  your  old  age,  are  you  ? 
You  be  a  good  girl.  You'll  be  all  right  if  you  don't  read  lying 
down. . . .'  (Mrs.  T. :  What  about  Father's  business  ?)  [Phinuit 
immediately  makes  motions  as  of  playing  on  piano  keys.  Mrs. 
T.'s  father's  invention,  a  typesetter,  with  keys  like  a  piano.] 
Phinuit :  '  It  has  keys.  Keys  with  letters  on  them.  [Correct.] 
[Mr.  D.  takes  Mrs.  T.'e  place.]  Oh,  it's  such  a  funny  thing. 
Did  he  invent  them?  Well,  he's  a  great  man.  There's  going 
to  be  a  spring  addition  that's  going  to  be  very  useful,  and  after 

a  few  months  of  dullness  it  will  be  all  right He's  going  to 

sell  some  of  these  things Add  the  spring  part,  and  it  will  be 

good.  All  this  long  pull  and  dull  time  was  for  the  best.  [Long 
struggle  to  get  the  thing  started.]  . . .  George  Perkins.  Do  you 
know  how  I  got  his  name  first.  One  of  his  friends  whispered 
me  his  name.  George  is  a  good  fellow.  Honest  fellow.  George 
is  true  blue.  Don't  tell  that  to  him ;  he  might  get  conceited.' 
(Mr.  D.:  I  don't  believe  he'll  get  conceited.)  Phinuit:  'Well, 
I'm  only  in  fun.'  [Mrs.  T.  takes  Phinuit's  hand]  [i.e.,  the 
medium's.  H.H.]  (Are  we  going  to  do  any  good  in  our  work?) 
Phinuit:  'You  are  going  to  make  a  change.  Who's  Emily? 
You're  going  to  change  your  life.  I'll  be  there.  [Mrs.  T.  found 
on  getting  home  that  the  Christian  name  of  principal  of  the 
school  they  were  starting  was  Emma.  This  we  had  never  heard 
or  seen,  as  the  lady  was  not  known  personally  to  Mrs.  T.,  and  her 
acceptance . . .  was  not  received  by  us  until  after  the  sitting.]  . . . 


506  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

It's  going  to  be  splendid.  It  has  to  do  with  the  mind.  [Feeling 
Mrs.  T.'s  eyes.]  The  physical  being  of  those  who  can't  see.  To 
benefit  the  blind,  the  ignorant.  I  don't  mean  the  eyesight.  [Dr. 
and  Mrs.  T.  starting  free  primary  school  and  kindergarten.] 
Margery  will  be  there.  Mamma,  mamma,  I  love  you.  Don't 
cry.  Ruthie  will  be  there.'  (Mrs.  T.  to  children :  Do  you  sleep 
there?)  Ruthie:  'I  sleep,  I  wake,  I  play.  I  wake,  I  sleep,  I 
play.'  (Mrs.  T.:  Won't  they  knock  for  me  again?)  R.:  'Ill 
go  on  Bettie's  bed  and  tap,  tap,  tap  for  you.  Don't  cry.  I  live. 
I  am  here.  Tell  mamma  I  am  here.  Pat  papa  for  me.  Posie — 
posie — posie.'  Phinuit :  '  Speak  to  me,  friends,  I'm  getting 
weak.  Speak  to  me,  I  can't  hear  you.'  (Mrs.  T. :  Good-by,  Dr. 
Phinuit.)  Phinuit  [in  a  weak  voice] :  '  Speak  louder,  friends, 
I'm  going.' " 

Sixth  Sitting.    May  10th,  1892.     (Pr.XIII,564f.) 
" Phinuit: '  Florence  [Mrs.  Thaw.  H.H.],  I'm  glad  to  see  you. 

(Well,  we're  glad  to  see  you.)    Good  boy,  doctor Sometimes 

I  come  a  long  way  to  see  you.  Where's  the  tube  ?  [Reference  to 
phonograph.]  ...  I  had  a  long  talk  with  Alva.  He  wants  me  to 
tell  this  to  you  and  to  Sabrina  when  I  saw  her.  He  caused  her 
a  great  deal  of  sorrow,  and  he's  sorry  for  it.  [Sabrina  is  Mrs. 
Dow.  Alva  was  her  first  husband,  deceased.  The  statements 
made  about  him  are  true. — R.H.]  Tell  her  about  this,  or  you'll 
do  him  a  great  injustice.  He's  been  in  great  suffering.  You 
can  help  him  out  of  this.  (What  can  we  do?)  Get  her  to  say 
that  inwardly  and  in  her  very  soul  she  freely  and  frankly  for- 
gives him.  You'll  be  the  means  of  saving  his  soul.  I  talked 
with  him.'  [Further  remarks  about  tlie  great  distress  of  Alva 
and  his  desire  to  be  forgiven,  and  to  be  helped  in  attaining  a 
higher  state.]  . . . 

"  (How  is  W going  to  pass  out  ?)    *  He's  going  to  sleep, 

and  when  he  wakes  he'll  be  in  the  spirit.  Heart  will  stop.  Kid- 
neys out  of  order.  He's  out  of  order  all  over.  It'll  be  one  of 
the  greatest  reliefs  to  all  concerned.'  [Note. — At  the  time  of 

sitting  Dr.  T.  had  no  more  reason  to  expect  the  death  of  W 

than  at  any  time  for  two  or  three  years,  W being  a  chronic 

invalid  with  asthma. . . .  W died  September  3rd,  in  sleep,  of 

heart  failure,  four  months  later.  In  the  sitting  of  May  22nd 
the  time  of  death  is  put  at '  six  months,  or  a  little  less.']  " 

See  his  appearance  as  control  in  twelfth  sitting,  page  510  of 
this  book.    Sixth  sitting  continues : 

"  ( Can  you  tell  us  about  Dr.  H to-day  ?)    [Pause.]    '  Hallo, 

doctor.  I  want  to  thank  you  for  all  the  many  kind  things  you've 
done  for  me.  The  children  are  all  right.  There's  not  one  of 
them  coming  to  me.  What's  that  about  the  grave,  the  tomb? 
(I  don't  know.)  Well,  tell  them  not  to  worry  about  it.  [Dr. 
H.'s  wife  was  for  nearly  a  year  much  depressed  by  the  fact  that 


Ch.  XXXIII]    Phinuit  Prophesies  and  Prescribes  507 

H.'s  body  lay  in  vault  awaiting  burial.]     He  says  something 

about  A .     [Spelling  name  of  daughter.]     She  coming  out 

all  right,  and  I  know  it.     She's  going  to  stay  in  the  body  for 

the  present.    [H.'s  daughter  A was  dangerously  ill  at  that 

time,  but  on  our  next  visit  was  found  to  have  passed  the  crisis.] 
I'm  glad  to  see  you,  my  best  friends.  The  first  time  I  saw  you, 
you  looked  like  great  black  specks  to  me.  Now  you  look  more 
like  yourselves.  [Speaks  of  the  spiritual  activities  there],  "a 
nigher  range  of  activities  is  carried  on  than  in  your  universe. 
Words  cannot  express  how  beautiful  it  is — like  the  dawn  in  the 
body,"  etc.,  etc.  [This  long  speech  so  characteristic  of  Dr.  H. 
that  Dr.  T.,  wishing  to  know  whether  he  or  Phinuit  was  speak- 
ing, said:]  (Can  you  tell  me  anything  about  Dr.  Phinuit?)  I'm 
talking  to  you  myself,  you  rascal.  I'm  talking  for  him.  (Well, 
you're  trying  to  make  us  think  he's  talking.)  I'm  simply  telling 
you  what  he  says.  I'm  trying  to  imitate  him.' " 

Who  made  these  dramatic  touches,  and  the  little  ones  which 
follow,  from  the  seventh  sitting,  May  19,  1892  (Pr.  XIII, 
570)? 

"  [Dr.  Phinuit  listened  to  his  own  voice  in  phonograph,  say- 
ing, '  Oh,  you're  a  nice  old  fellow.  You've  got  me  on  record.'] 

"  [Phonograph  says,  '  I'm  going  out.']  So  I  am  going  out. 
Ha,  ha,  that's  good." 

Eighth  Sitting.    May  20th,  1892.    (Pr.Xin,570f.) 

"  [Mr.  L.  Dow  sitting/] 

" (How  about  Medium?  She  has  a  cough)  '  My  Me- 
dium? She  has  a  cough,  has  she?  Well,  you  have  her  put  a 
half  ounce  of  turpentine  in  a  half  a  cup  of  boiling  water,  and 
inhale  it.  (What  for  her  trouble  under  the  arm?)  Oh,  that's 
poor  blood.  A  tonic  will  scatter  that.  You  give  her  two  ounces 
of  tincture  of  cinchona;  four  ounces  of  French  dialyzed  iron 
and  four  ounces  simple  syrup.  Give  her  a  teaspoonful  one  half- 
hour  before  meals.' " 

And  Phinuit  knew  no  medicine!    Was  he  Mrs.  Piper? 

Ninth  Sitting.    May  22nd,  1892.    (Pr.XIH,572f.) 
"  Sitter,  Miss  Ellen  Heffern,  nurse  of  Mrs.  Thaw's  children. 

" She  told  me  to  get  that.     [Object  given  which  the 

sitter  supposed  to  be  her  mother's  hair.  It  was,  however,  an 
Agnus  Z)et.]  . . .  [Miss  Heffern  brought  several  articles  to  the 

sitting  in  a  parcel The  Agnus  Dei . . .  was  wrapped  in  paper, 

and  she  supposed  that  this  particular  packet  contained  her 
mother's  hair. . . .— R.H.,  1898.]  Put  that  in  there.  Put  it  in 
there  and  wear  it,  [thrusting  nis  finger  down  the  neck  of  the 
sitter]  just  as  she  told  you  to.  [When  sitter  insisted  that 
Phinuit  was  wrong  about  this  object  he  tore  off  paper  and  showed 
the  Agnus  Dei.~\  [True.  Mother  had  told  sitter  to  wear  it.]  " 


508  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

Later,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Thaw  sitting. 

All  the  following  dramatic  business  (Pr.  XIII,  575-6) 
strains  the  telepathic  and  divided  personality  theories  hard : 

"  [Phinuit  writes  Harry  twice,  in  mirror  writing.  (Harry  is 
the  name  of  one  of  Dr.  Thaw's  brothers.— R.H.)  The  hand 
was  then  seized  by  another  '  influence,'  and  the  following  was 
written,  during  the  course  of  which  Phinuit  made  occasional 
remarks  like  these  to  the  communicating  intelligence;  'I  told 
you  if  you'd  come  with  me  I'd  show  you  your  friends,  you  old 
idiot.'. . . '  He's  as  stubborn  as  a  mule.'. . . '  Don't  thump  me,' 
etc.]  . . .  [Phinuit  then  struggles  to  '  get  his  hand  back.']  I  got 
it  away.  [To  Mrs.  T.]  What  are  you  worrying  about?  (I 
want  to  go  to  you.)  What?  (To  the  babies  sometimes.)  Oh, 
you  wicked,  wicked  little  thing,  etc.  [To  Dr.  Thaw.  H.H.]  Dr., 
can't  you  straighten  her  out  better  than  that?  You  stop  your 
worrying.  You've  nothing  to  worry  about.  Go  to  sleep. ...  (I 
want  to  see  them  so  much  sometimes.)  Oh,  you  act  like  a  baby. 
Come  here,  dearie,  come  along.  Look  at  the  little  curly-headed 
one.  [To  Dr.  T.]  Your  mother's  got  her.  See  her  jump  her. 
[Dandling.]  Can't  you  see  her,  you  stupid  fools?  (No.)  You 
can  see  her,  can't  you,  Hodgson?  (No.)  Humph.  [The  reader 
may  be  good  enough  to  remember  what  was  said  earlier  about 
the  mixing  up  of  Phinuit's  remarks  and  the  children's.  H.H.] 
Tell  mamma  p-tee,  p-sse,  happy  little  Ruthie.  Bring  a  posies. 
That's  a  spirit  posy.  Don't  worry  mother.  Dranma,  she  says. 
Ruth,  dranma,  don't  worry  papa,  don't  worry  you  [to  Mrs.  T.] 
pt-tee,  pt-tee.  [Remember  what  Mrs.  Thaw  told  me  about  these 
ejaculations.  H.H.]  [Phinuit  departs — heavy  breathing.]  Pttee. 
Pttee.  (Little  baby.  How  do  you  do,  baby?)  Pt-tee.  (Little 
Margaret  with  you  ?)  Pt-tee.  [Points  upwards  and  to  one  side 
at  picture  with  forefinger.  Hand  rises,  finger  points,  trembles, 
and  hand  sinks.]  " 

Of  this  scene  Hodgson  says  (Pr.  XIII,  385) : 

"  I  was  taking  notes,  sitting  slightly  to  one  side  and  partly 
behind  Mrs.  Piper,  while  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Thaw  were  sitting  in 
front  of  her,  with  their  heads  somewhat  bowed.  Phinuit  appar- 
ently 'left,'  and  his  place  was  taken  by  Ruthie,  who  began 
whispering  pttee  pttee.  The  hand  rose  and  turned  somewhat 
diagonally  and  extended  the  forefinger  and  pointed  towards  a 
picture  on  the  far  side  of  the  room.  The  Thaws  did  not  see 
this  action  until  I  drew  their  attention  to  it,  when  they  looked 
up,  and  followed  the  direction  of  the  pointing.  The  hand  then 
trembled  and  sank.  Dr.  Thaw  noted :  '  During  the  last  month 
of  Ruthie's  life  it  was  a  regular  morning  custom  to  bring  her  to 
the  room  in  which  this  sitting  was  held — our  bedroom — and  she 
would  always  point,  as  hand  did  in  sitting,  with  one  finger 


Ch.  XXXIII]    The  Babies.    Pantomime  at  Picture        509 

(unusual  with  a  baby)  and  say  "pt-tee,  pt-tee,"  just  as  in  sit- 
ting. This  little  incident  had  not  been  in  either  sitter's  con- 
scious mind  since  baby's  death,  six  months  before.  Mrs.  Piper 
had  never  been  in  that  room  until  the  actual  time  of  sitting. 
Many  other  pictures  in  the  room,  two  of  which  Mrs.  Piper's 
hand  could  have  pointed  at  more  easily  than  the  particular  one 
always  noticed  by  the  baby.' " 

But  to  return  to  the  ninth  sitting : 

"  [Phinuit  returns.]  Baby  wanted  to  come.  The  old  lady 
stood  up  behind  her  so  she  wouldn't  fall.  Don't  be  so  impa- 
tient, little  one,  wait  a  minute,  darling.  Thank  mamma  for  the 
posy.  Bring  the  posy  again  another  day.  She  has  no  pain — 
no  teeth.  I'm  happy,  happy.  Don't  cry  any  more.  (And  little 
Margaret?)  Little  one  can't  talk  so  well.  Little  Margaret, 
Margie,  beautiful,  they're  just  like  flowers  in  blossom.  (Why, 
they  were  twins.  Why  can't  she  talk  as  well  as  the  other  ?)  She 
doesn't  talk  so  much.  Her  talk  is  different;  she  doesn't  articu- 
late quite  so  distinctly.  I  can  understand  it,  but  you  wouldn't. 
Little  da  da  da  dada." 

One  of  the  mutually  exclusive  explanations  so  far  suggested 
is  that  Margaret  lived  here  six  months  less  than  Ruth. 

"  (Why  did  she  put  her  finger  up?)  Pt-tee,  Pt-tee.  That's 
what  she  used  to  do  in  the  body.  Your  mother  says  she  had  the 
baby  do  that  so  that  you'd  know  it's  baby." 

Tenth  Sitting,  May  23rd,  1892.  (Pr.XIII,577f.) 
"  [Present :  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Thaw.  R.  H.  taking  notes.] 
"  [Phinuit  to  Mrs.  Thaw.  H.H.]  '  Well,  little  girl,  you're  got 
over  your  worrying.  I'll  go  and  find  some  friends  for  you.  (I 
want  to  bring  my  little  Betty  in  to  you.)  [Servant  Nellie  brings 
in  Beatrice,  Mrs.  T.'s  little  daughter.]  Ha!  Nice  little  girl, 
come  here.  Here  comes  the  baby.  Two  babies.  Give  me 
Ruthie's  play-toys.  [Rosary.]  See  the  baby.  It's  too  heavy  for 
her.  [Puts  rosary  round  Mrs.  T.'s  head,  between  her  and 
Betty.]  See!  That's  little  Margaret.  Dad,  Dad,  Dad.  Ptee, 
pssy,  Nanna,  Nanna.  [Stroking  B.'s  hair.]  Pttee,  pttee,  pttee. 
[Phinuit  leaves,  Baby  comes.  Finger  points  toward  picture.] 
Pttee— pttee,  etc.  There,  there,  etc.  [Places  B.'s  hand  on  Mrs. 
Piper's  head,  strokes  B.'s  hair,  etc.,  points  toward  picture  again, 
'Pttee,  ptt-ee.'  Places  hand  on  Dr.  T.'s  head  and  pats  it.] 
[Phinuit  returns.  Mrs.  T.  is  sending  B.  away.]  Ruthie  wants 

the  little  one  to  stay Who's  Elsine?    [Struggles  after  name.] 

That's  W ,  too.     W in  the  body.'     (Who's  speaking?) 

Dr.  H. :  '  George  William  . . .  Andre  Valliere  says  tell  George  I'm 
all  right.  I  have  seen  Whiskers.'  ['  Alfred  Howell's  dog,  then 
dead.'— Dr.  Thaw,  1896.]  " 


510  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

I  retain  this  partly  because  I  want  to  see  my  dog  Laddie 
mentioned  in  Chapter  VII,  and  his  predecessor,  Whiskers. 

Eleventh  Sitting.    May  29th,  1892.     [R.  H.  taking  notes.] 

(Pr.XIII,579f.) 

After  a  sitting  with  the  Thaw's  nurse,  which  was  as  Irish 
as  that  good  woman  herself 

" There  were  indications  of  '  change  of  control/  after 

which  there  was  a  long  silence  while  Mrs.  Piper's  hand  pulled  as 
though  at  a  mustache,  moved  her  hair  back  from  the  forehead, 
and  felt  my  [Hodgson's.  H.H.]  face  over.  I  said  '  Hallo,  who's 
there?  What's  the  matter?  Why  don't  you  speak ?'  Finally 
the  voice  came,  very  different  apparently  from  Phinuit's: 
'  That's  the  funniest— I  didn't  think  I  could  get— it  can't  be 
possible  I've  got  here  at  last.  Well!  Well!  Well.  You've 
changed  since  I  came  here,  tremendously.  You  don't  know  me, 
do  you  ?  I'm  George  Pelham.' " 

For  some  time  sittings  had  been  arranged  with  persona 
unknown  to  G.  P.,  whom  (at  his  then  stage  of  development?) 
he  would  not  have  been  apt  to  seek.  Later  apparently  he  tried 
to  be  on  hand  to  help  everybody. 

"This  incident  occurred  about  a  fortnight  after  the  sitting 
with  G.  P.'s  father  and  mother.  The  series  of  stenographically 
reported  sittings  did  not  begin  till  the  following  November.  A 
long  conversation  ensued,  in  which  one  or  two  obscurities  in 
recent  sittings  were  referred  to,  but  dealing  chiefly  with  G.  P.'s 
experiences  immediately  after  death,  first  impressions,  anxiety 
to  speak  with  friends,  etc.  Nearly  all  this  was  spoken  into  the 
phonograph,  and  scarcely  any  notes  were  taken.  Unfortunately 
we  found  later  that  the  phonographic  record  gave  us  only  a  few 

scattered  words  here  and  there When  asking  G.  P.  to  talk 

into  the  phonograph,  I  said,  '  You  know  what  a  phonograph  is  ? ' 
'  Of  course  I  dp.  Why,  Hodgson,  you  must  think  I've  got  very 
unintelligent  since  I  came  over  here.' " 

Telepathy  and  divided  personality ! ! ! 

Twelfth  Sitting.    [Over  seven  months  since  previous  one.  H.H.] 

January  16th,  1893.     (Pr.XIII,580f.) 

"  [Dr.  and  Mrs.  Thaw  sitting.    A.  D.  taking  shorthand  notes.] 

"  Phinuit :  '  That's  Florrie.    [Mrs.  Thaw.  H.H,]    I'm  so  glad 

to  see  you.    How  are  you  ?    Where's  the  doctor  ? '    (I'm  here.) 

Phinuit :  '  You're  here  too !    I'm  so  glad  to  see  you Here, 

speak  to  the  baby.  She  has  a  gentleman  with  her.  Who  is — 
who  is — I  know  that  gentleman  just  as  well  as  can  be.  That  is 
the  gentleman  I  told  you  was  going  to  pass  out  of  the  body. 
That  is  W .  That's  your  brother  W .  [See  p.  506.] 


Ch.  XXXIII]    Dr.  Thaw's  Brother.     Dr.  II 511 

[Brother  assumes  control.  H.H.]  Well,  I  never!  Oh,  hello  1 
B-l-r.  B-l-r.  B-l-r.  [Dr.  A.  B.  Thaw  is  usually  called  by  his 
middle  name,  Blair,  by  his  relatives  and  intimate  friends. — R.H.] 
Hello,  Florence,  Florence.  How  are  you?  [Phinuit  while 
apparently  repeating  for  W.,  interjects  in  his  own  character  as 
follows.  H.H.]  He  speaks  kind  of  queer.  [Then  he  repeats  for 
W.,  or  W.  for  himself.  H.H.]  I  want  to  speak  to  you.  Come 
here.  Well,  I  never !  I  have  seen  you  a  great  many  times  since 
I  passed  out  of  the  body,  but  there  is  one  thing  I  want  to  tell 
you  of  particularly.  Listen  to  me.  B-l-r.  B-l-r.  B-l-r.  I 
can't  get  that  name  right.  You  listen  to  it  and  interpret  the 
best  you  can.  Look,  here,  I  want  to  tell  you,  my  brother,  one 
thing — my  brother.  I  wish  I  had  my  life  in  the  body  over 
again,  I  would  do  differently.  (In  what  way?)  In  many  ways, 

I  assure  you.    Where  is  L— — ?    L .  L— — .    Well,  did  you 

think  I  was  coming  here  like  this?    (The  Dr.  [Phinuit.  H.H.] 

told  me.    W .)    Why  didn't  you  tell  me?    I  had  no  sooner 

got  out  than  I  realized  I  lived  again.  But  I  didn't  know  this. 
Did  you  know  this?  Why  didn't  you  tell  me?  You  wanted  to 

surprise  me My  sufferings  are  at  an  end. ...  I  want  you  to 

think  of  me  as  being  perfectly  happy. ...  I  think  father  was 
glad  to  see  me,  but  you  know  he  didn't  think  this  any  more 
than  I  did.  [And  this  lifelike  picture  is  telepathy  is  it?  Or  a 
secondary  personality  of  Mrs.  Piper?  I  am  afraid  the  constant 
demonstration  of  the  inadequacy  of  these  notions  may  be  lead- 
ing me  to  remark  upon  it  too  often.  H.H.]  (What  did  he  say 
about  it  ?  Do  you  ever  talk  about  coming  to  see  me  with  father  ?) 
Father  has  been  here  [i.e.,  to  the  medium.  H.H.]  before,  and 
he  knew  it,  and  he  told  me  about  it.  But  this  is  the  first  channel 

that  has  been  open  to  me No  more  pain.    I  am  glad  to  get 

out  of  it,  thank  the  Lord!  I  wouldn't  go  back  into  the  body 
for  all  the  world  and  all  there  is  in  it.  [Remember  that  he  had 

been  a  great  sufferer.  H.H.] 

"Phinuit:  [smoothing  fur  on  Mrs.  T.'s  shoulder  some  time.] 
Pussie!  Pussie!  Pussie!  [Ruthie  used  to  do  so  with  her 
mother's  fur  coat  in  the  last  month  of  her  life,  and  say,  Pussie, 

Pussie.    This  was  the  first  time  fur  was  worn  at  a  sitting 

(H wants  to  know  about  the  verses  he  left.)  ...    Phinuit 

[reporting  for  Dr.  H.  ?  H.H.]  :  As  I  go  dreaming  along  I  look 
back  to  you  with  a  great  deal  of  happiness.  You  were  my  ideals, 

you  always  will  be When  you  sleep  I  oftentimes  go  to  you 

and  I  shall  never  forget  you.  And  do  tell  my  family  so." 

These  Thaw  sittings,  if  viewed  from  the  spiritistic  side, 
strike  me  as  full  of  impossibilities.  And  these  Thaw  sittings, 
if  viewed  from  any  other  side  I  can  see,  also  strike  me  as  full 
of  impossibilities.  In  other  words,  at  present  they  seem  ab- 
solutely unexplainable.  We  can  only  wait  for  time,  or  draw 


512  Hodgson's  Second  Piper  Report    [Bk.  II,  Pt.  IV 

our  conclusions  on  the  main  question,  if  we  must  draw  them, 
and  can,  from  other  sources. 

In  sittings  with  other  people  in  later  years,  Phinuit  apolo- 
gizes for  being  interrupted  by  these  children,  and  remarks 
upon  how  finely  they  are  growing.  He  does  not  go  into  any 
explanations  to  his  sitters.  His  remarks  are  very  casual,  and 
their  significance  would  not  be  apparent  to  anybody  unfamil- 
iar with  these  sittings.  I  don't  know  or  much  care  whether 
my  friends  Hodgson,  James,  and  Newbold  would  call  this 
"  evidential."  To  me  it  seems  enormously  so.  But  I  fear  my 
use  of  the  word  is  shamelessly  untechnical. 


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